H-Infinity Attitude Control System Design for a Small-Scale Autonomous Helicopter with Nonlinear Dynamics and Uncertainties

The paper focuses on the design of a robust H-infinity attitude controller for an unmanned small-scale helicopter. To take into account the salient nonlinearities, a model with six-degrees-of-freedom nonlinear dynamics and some linear approximation of the aerodynamic parts are used when extracting a linear model and performing simulations to check the performance of the designed controller. To design a robust H-infinity controller, an augmented plant is constructed by adjusting several weighting functions. Then, a robust controller is synthesized utilizing the augmented system with the weighting functions and H-infinity control methodology. Using computer simulation it is shown that the H-infinity controller works well when applied to the nonlinear model even though it is designed using a linear model approximation. Through frequency response analysis, it is shown that the proposed controller can overcome more than half of the uncertainty variations around a nominal point at the input side. The time-domain simulation with the nonlinear model demonstrates that the proposed controller is very robust in relation to the uncertainties, as was expected, overcoming large gain uncertainties and time delay in each input channel. The analysis and simulation results also show that the control system satisfies the Level 1 handling requirements, as defined in Aeronautical Design Standard ADS-33E-PRF.