Computer based aircraft stability control system with manual user navigation (CNAV)

• Main Authors: Belmonte, Mark Edward C., Factora, Michael P., Neuda, Kelly Roland V., Tiam Watt, Christopher S., Villanueva, Jezrel Paul L.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2012
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/14786
• Institution: De La Salle University

An RC helicopter offers versatility that allows its user access to the 3-dimensional space that it can fly backwards, rotate itself and hover in the air which airplanes cannot perform. Like real helicopters, these are hard to control and users need to have a certain background in flying them. This paper is about the development of a control system that is able to lessen the effort required on the user’s part in flying a 6-channel helicopter. The control system is in charge of translating the 3-channel control inputs from the user into 6-channel controls the RC helicopter requires. An Inertial Measurement Unit is used to measure the current state of the helicopter during flight. The measured data are processed in order to get the translational and angular position. Integrating the accelerometer data twice does not give the actual position of the helicopter along the x, y and z-axis due to data drifting. To add to this, taking the actual yaw angle gave the same problem to that of acquiring the actual position of the helicopter. Using the Kalman filter, the data from the accelerometers and gyroscopes were fused to produce an accurate estimate of the actual pitch and roll angles of the helicopter. Then, a PID controller is used to compensate the pitch and roll angles from the Kalman filter to maintain the helicopter’s pitch and roll to zero angles. Quasi-stability was achieved in outdoor flight tests – the helicopter stayed within a 5m x 5m x 5m frame for periods ranging from 5 seconds to 50 seconds. Recorded data show that the PID controller was consistent in compensating the pitch and roll angles from Kalman filtered IMU data. The pitch and roll controls are enough to quasi-stabilize the helicopter using PID controller to translate 3-channel control to 6-channel movement.