Trajectory control of aggressive maneuver by agile autonomous helicopter

In this paper, a new state-dependent coefficient parameterization of an agile helicopter dynamics is derived to deal effectively with the optimal trajectory control of aggressive maneuver such as the infinity maneuver with agility. The angular velocity of the main rotor and engine throttle as state and input, respectively, are involved in the dynamic model to improve the maneuvering capability of helicopter. Since the presented six degrees-of-freedom helicopter model is highly nonlinear and nonaffine, particularly nonlinear in actuator, the state-dependent Riccati equation is implemented in the presence of saturation bounds for actuators to achieve precision trajectory control and conquer the challenge of aggressive maneuver tracking control. In addition, new helicopter dynamic representation results in the conventional state-dependent Riccati equation to be applied without prevalent simplifications within dynamic and actuators and also certain augmentations on controllers such as trim or feedforward compensators. Indeed, the proposed controller structure is verified by simulations for both regulation and trajectory tracking problem.