Adaptive Backstepping Control of a 2-DOF Helicopter System with Uniform Quantized Inputs

This paper proposes a new adaptive controller for a 2-Degree of Freedom (DOF) helicopter system in the presence of input quantization. The inputs are quantized by uniform quantizers. A nonlinear mathematical model is derived for the 2-DOF helicopter system based on Euler-Lagrange equations, where the system parameters and the control coefficients are uncertain. A new adaptive control algorithm is developed by using backstepping technique to track the pitch and yaw position references independently. Only quantized input signals are used in the system which reduces communication rate and cost. It is shown that not only the ultimate stability is guaranteed by the proposed controller, but also the designers can tune the design parameters in an explicit way to obtain the required closed loop behavior. Experiments are carried out on the Quanser helicopter system to validate the effectiveness, robustness and control capability of the proposed scheme.