Heading control system design for an unmanned helicopter

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are used for a variety of activities, such as rescuing, reconnaissance and surveillance. Thus, more and more fully autonomous UAVs are expected. In this paper, we consider the problem of modelling and controlling the tail motion of an UAV along a desired trajectory. First, the response data of the system is collected during special flight test and a linear time invariant model is extracted by identification technique. Then, the control system is designed and implemented using a PID feedback/feedforward control method. Simulation results show that the identified model is very accurate and the designed control system is quite well.