ESTIMATION OF PID GAINS OF AUTOPILOT SYSTEM FOR 5.5 TON CLASS HELICOPTER

Abstract Rotary wing aircrafts (helicopters) are inherently unstable. Although, the conventional helicopters with mechanical linkages and controls can be operated manually by pilot, integration of an Autopilot system with helicopter reduces the pilot workload and improves handling quality of the helicopter. An effort has been made to indigenously design an Autopilot for a Rotary Wing Aircraft. The Indigenous Autopilot system is based on a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller. In this paper, estimation methodology for selection of optimum PID gains for helicopter in closed loop system has been discussed. The simulation studies with closed loop system have also been discussed which demonstrates the expected results.