Environment Adaptive Heading Control for an Autonomous Unmanned Helicopter

To develop flying rescue robots using autonomous unmanned helicopters, it is necessary to improve performance and reliability of flight control systems. Adaptation against the environmental changes, such as wind, has very important role. In this paper, adaptive heading (yaw) control for an autonomous helicopter is proposed. Roll angle and roll rate are used to determine desired yaw angle. Therefore, roll dynamics and yaw dynamics are coupled and stable dutch roll is induced to change the yaw angle corresponding to wind direction or the direction of the helicopter's motion. Results of flight experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed method.