Control system design and testing for a small‐scale autonomous helicopter

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to conduct the design, development and testing of a controller for an autonomous small-scale helicopter. Design/methodology/approach - The hardware in the loop simulation (HILS) platform is developed based on the nonlinear model of JR Voyager G.260 small-scale helicopter. Autonomous controllers are verified using the HILS environment prior to flight experiments. Findings - The gains of the multi-loop cascaded control architecture can be effectively optimized within the HILS environment. Various autonomous flight operations are achieved and it is demonstrated that the prediction from the simulations is in a good agreement with the result from the flight test. Research limitations/implications - The synthesized controller is effective for the particular test-bed. For other small-scale helicopters (with different size and engine specifications), the controller gains must be tuned again. Practical implications - This work represents a practical control design and testing procedures for an autonomous small-scale helicopter flight control. The autonomous helicopter can be used for various missions ranging from film making, agriculture and volcanic surveillance to power line inspection. Originality/value - The research addresses the need for systematic design, development and testing of controller for a small-scale autonomous helicopter by utilizing HILS environment.