Autonomous helicopter control using fuzzy gain scheduling

The work reported in the paper is aimed at achieving aggressive manoeuvrability for an unmanned helicopter APID MK-III by Scandicraft AB in Sweden. The manoeuvrability problem is treated at the level of attitude (pitch, roll, yaw) and the aim is to achieve stabilization of the attitude angles within much larger ranges than currently available. We present a fuzzy gain scheduling control approach based on two different types of Iinearization of the original nonlinear APID MK-III model. The performance of the fuzzy gain scheduled controllers is evaluated in simulation and shows that they are effective means for achieving the desired robust manoeuvrability.