Robust near-hovering flight controller for model-scale helicopters via parametric approach

This paper aims to provide a parametric design for robust flight controller of the model-scale helicopter. The main contributions lie in two aspects. Firstly, under near-hovering condition, a procedure is presented for simplification of the highly nonlinear and under-actuated model of the model-scale helicopter. This nonlinear system is linearized around the trim values of the chosen flight mode, followed by decomposing this high-order linear model into three lower-order subsystems according to the coupling properties among channels. After decomposition, the three subsystems are obtained which include the coupling subsystem between the roll (pitch) motion and the lateral (longitudinal) motion, the subsystem of the yaw motion and the subsystem of the vertical motion. Secondly, by using eigenstructure assignment, the problem of flight controller design can be converted into solving two optimization problems and the linear robust controllers of these subsystems are designed through solving these optimization problems. Besides, this paper contrasts and analyzed the performances of the LQR controller and the parametric controller. The results demonstrate the effectiveness and the robustness against the parametric perturbations of the parametric controller.