Adaptive Fuzzy Controller Design for Altitude Control of an Unmanned Helicopter

Unmanned Helicopter has several abilities such as vertical Take off, hovering, low speed flight at low altitude. Such vehicles are becoming popular in actual applications such as search and rescue, aerial reconnaissance and surveillance. These vehicles also used under risky environments without threatening the life of a pilot. Since a small unmanned helicopter is very sensitive to environmental conditions, it is generally known that the flight control is very difficult problems. The nonlinear adaptive fuzzy controller design procedure and its applications for altitude control of unmanned helicopter were described in the paper. This research was concentrated on describing the design methodologies of altitude controller design for small unmanned helicopter acquiring autonomous take off and vertical movement. The design methodologies and performance of the altitude controller were simulated and verified with an adaptive fuzzy controller. Throughout simulation results, I showed that the proposed adaptive controllers have enhanced control performance such as robustness, effectiveness and safety, in the altitude control of the unmanned helicopter.