Micro Helicopter-airplane system: Trajectory tracking and attitude control

International audienceThis paper focuses on the regulation and trajectory tracking for a Micro Coaxial Rocket Helicopter (MCR UAV) and a mini aircraft. The former has the characteristic of performing hover and forward flight while the latter is considered as an external air transporter for the MCR UAV. For control purposes, the helicopter stabilization is based on the Backsteeping procedure, and a PD controller is implemented in the aircraft in order to execute semi-autonomous flight. The avionics for these aerial vehicles consists of an embedded computer, low-cost sensors and homemade modules (Signal Conditioning Circuits, Analog Filters) and the flight control algorithm is implemented in the embedded system. Simulation and experimental results show an effective performance of the developed system during the flight