Adaptive control system for autonomous helicopter slung load operations

This paper presents design and verification of an estimation and control system for a helicopter slung load system. The estimator provides position and velocity estimates of the s lung load and is designed to augment existing navigation in autonomous helicopters. Sensor input is provided by a vision system on the helicopter that measures the position of the slung load. The controller is a combined feedforward and feedback scheme for simultaneous avoidance of swing excitation and active swing damping. Simulations and laboratory flight tests show the e ffectiveness of the combined control system, yielding significant load swing reduction c ompared to the baseline controller.

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