Control of autonomous helicopter models with robust H2-type switched linear controller

In this paper, the robust hybrid control design is investigated for a small scale helicopter flying with multiple linearized mathematical models. A hybrid control architecture is proposed and developed to cope with the complexity of the non-linear system. This class of control system is known as hybrid control systems which deal with dynamic changes and jump transition behaviour between the changes. A small scale helicopter is known to inherently have these features. In this paper, the dynamic behaviours of the small scale helicopter are represented as five linearized models at trim conditions. When a wider region of flight envelope is considered, this approach leads to a switching problem representing changes from one mode to another mode in a predefined order for a safe and successful flight. This paper specifically investigates the control of transition dynamics between many modes as a hybrid system. One approach of control for hybrid switch system is characterized by Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs) for performance analysis and control synthesis. State jumps of the controller responding to switched plant dynamics are exploited to improve control performance.