Design and Implementation of an Advanced Control and Guidance Algorithm of a Single Rotor Helicopter

A Master of Science thesis in Mechatronics Engineering by Muhannad A. R. I. Al-Omari entitled, "Design and Implementation of an Advanced Control and Guidance Algorithm of a Single Rotor Helicopter," submitted in June 2013. Thesis advisor is Dr. Ali A. Jhemi and Co-advisor is Dr. Mohammad Abdel Kareem Rasheed Jaradat. Available are both soft and hard copies of the thesis.

Abstract

In this thesis, a complete autopilot solution for the Joker 3 miniature helicopter was designed and implemented. A dynamic model, which sufficiently describes the Joker 3 helicopter in a wide range of flight conditions was derived. Different control methodology were designed and tested against an appropriate number of tests to find the best control algorithm for controlling the attitude, altitude and position of the Joker 3 helicopter, Also an Inertial Navigation System (INS) and a state observer were designed to compensate for the missing states in the measurement vector. After that, a position controller was developed to allow the Joker 3 helicopter to perform waypoint navigation missions, and at the end, an autopilot was designed and manufactured using a microcontroller unit as the main processor and a hard-ware-in-the-loop simulation test was developed to test both the autopilot's hardware and software functionality.