3-DOF Helicopter Plant


Brief Description: Helicopter dynamics are nonlinear and open-loop unstable as well as cross-coupling between their control channels, suitable to design advanced multivariable controllers and evaluate its performance.


The 3-DOF helicopter is available in our laboratory to investigate the effectiveness of advance controllers  in real-time experiments.  The helicopter is useful to teach aerospace control concepts and to implement real applications of flight dynamics.

 

The purpose is to design controllers able to command the helicopter body to a desired elevation and a desired travel rate or position.

Related publications:

  • J.Witt, S. Boonto and H. Werner. "Approximate model predictive control of a 3-DOF helicopter," in Proceeding of the 46th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, New Orleans, LA, USA, December 12-14,2007, pp.4501-4506.