Low-Cost Educational Feedback Control System: Helicopter Tail Rotor for Yaw Control

This paper presents a low-cost educational mechatronic system - a simplified helicopter tail rotor for yaw control - used in a 12-hour graduate-level module. Details of hardware configuration, modeling, simulation, and experiment of helicopter tail rotor are provided. Feedback control using proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller is implemented in real time through MATLAB support package for Arduino hardware together with Arduino Uno microcontroller. Experimental output tracking results for sinusoidal reference signal are presented. The student feedback after learning with the presented system shows positive results in offering student understanding and appreciation on the mechatronics and control subject.