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Miniature helicopters are increasingly used in military and civilian applications, mainly due to their ability to hover, fly in very low altitudes and within confined spaces. However, due to model nonlinearities and inherent instabilities, low-level controller design for autonomous flights is a challenge. This Chapter presents an overview of major accomplishments in the area of unmanned helicopter control by several research groups, and focuses on techniques used for low-level control. It then describes a general model suitable for small or miniature helicopter non-aggressive flights and compares three different controllers, a PID, a Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) and an H controller in terms of their practical implementation to achieve autonomous, self-governing flights.

A simplified analysis is presented for small scale unmanned helicopter controller design suitable for non-aggressive flight scenarios.A MATLAB based detailed approach has been followed to analyze system mathematical characteristics, and provide the design process toolfor PIDIPD andfuzzy logic controllers for the yaw, pitch, roll (Euler angles) and the height variables for hover and slow flight. Both controllers have performed well; have demonstrated promising results being at the same time simple and mathematically sound.

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is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering with research interest in biomedical signal processing. He teaches courses in digital systems, signals and systems, communications and biomedical signal processing.