Abstract
The aim of this study is to make stable adaptive control system without model generation, even if the helicopter's dynamics changes. Our research group has been studying the autonomous control of multi-rotor helicopter, and it was successfully demonstrated in outdoor experiments. The control system design is based on optimal control theory using gray-box modeling, and it requires much time and effort of modeling and control. In addition, changing helicopter's dynamics leads to deterioration of the control performance. Therefore, it is necessary to design new controller in order to shorten the hours of control system design and adapt to changing dynamics. In this study, we applied adaptive control method to solve the problems that have been presented. As a first step, we verified an adaptive controller for altitude control of multi-rotor helicopter in the simulation and experiments. The experiments were conducted indoor-outdoor. In indoor experiments, VICON motion capture system was used as altitude information. In outdoor experiments, a pressure sensor was used as its. It was found from experimental result that adaptive control is effective for altitude control of multi-rotor helicopter. Moreover, it made a success to shorten the time required controller design. In this paper, we present its adaptive control system and experimental results.
