Gyroscopic system for yaw channel control in aerobatic UAV helicopters

The paper describes the design of a high performance gyroscopic control for the yaw channel of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Radio Controlled (RC) aerobatic helicopters, guaranteeing high speed response to the RC pilots. The dynamic parameters of helicopter have been measured and a model which takes into account the main rotor torque has been derived. A new asymmetrical controller has been developed that compensates the torque of the main rotor with the aim of providing equal dynamic response in clockwise and anti-clockwise pirouettes. Preliminary measurements show that the proposed system is faster than the actual commercial gyroscopic controllers.