Interaction of altitude control and waypoint navigation of a 4 rotor helicopter

Abstract

The motivation for the investigation of the interaction of a altitude and position resp. waypoint controller is the demand for Unattended Aerial Systems (UAS) capable to fulfill e.g. surveillance task in contaminated or in not accessible areas. This paper deals with the development of such altitude controller and a 2D position controller based on GPS data for Unattended Aerial Vehicles (UAV), which are able to hover above a given destination as well as to navigate between waypoints. In addition, these controllers are designed to let a four rotor UAV fly with the maximum possible speed taking into account that the UAV must not lower the cruising altitude in an uncontrolled manner. The introduced controllers were implemented in Matlab/Simulink as well as on a target system for testing and verification purposes. Various simulations and experiments are provided explaining and proving the functionality of the described controller. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.