Command Governor-Based Adaptive Control of an Autonomous Helicopter

This paper presents an application of a recently developed command governor-based adaptive control framework to a high-fidelity autonomous helicopter model. This framework is based on an adaptive controller, but the proposed command governor adjusts the trajectories of a given command in order to follow an ideal reference system (capturing a desired closed-loop system behavior) both in transient-time and steady-state without resorting to high-gain learning rates in the adaptation (update) law. The high-fidelity autonomous helicopter is a six rigid body degree of freedom model, with additional engine, fuel and rotor dynamics. Non-ideal attributes of physical systems such as model uncertainty, sensor noise, and actuator dynamics are modeled to evaluate the command governor controller in realistic conditions. The proposed command governor adaptive control framework is shown to reduce attitude error with respect to a standard adaptive control scheme during vehicle maneuvers.