PID Control of a Lab Scale Single-Rotor Helicopter System using a Multicore Microcontroller

Abstract

In this paper, a lab-scale single-rotor helicopter system is modeled and controlled. The introduced system is first modeled mathematically and then modeled with an online identification method using MATLAB. The model is then used to design a PID controller for the system. The designed controller is then implemented using a multicore microcontroller. The control task is one of the tasks in the introduced control software where the role of the microcontroller is to execute it along with many different tasks like interfacing sensors and actuators, tuning control parameters, data filtering and logging. The implemented control system uses a multicore microcontroller to execute all tasks simultaneously and hence improves performance and functionality. It is also demonstrated that using multicore microcontrollers can reduce design-time, implementation-time and cost while keeping higher performance rates. This contribution shows that it is possible to design and implement complex real-time embedded control systems that employ advanced control algorithms using multicore microcontrollers.