Development of flight control laws for a small-scale helicopter

This thesis explore the development of models for the simulation of flight and control laws for a Rotary Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (RUAV). The purpose of the department’s project is to make the small scale helicopter capable to complete a planned mission in autonomous flight, with automatic take-off and landing and sense and avoid capabilities. This work deals with analyzing the linearized model, check the trim and implement control laws to help the pilot in the flight path, i.e. change the command from collective and cyclic to altitude, speed and attitude the pilot wish (automatic flight). After this work it will be possible replace the pilot with a flight control system (autonomous flight). First of all has been developed the calculation of trim for the different flight conditions; with those trims have been calculated the aerodynamic derivatives and the linearized system, useful to understand the dynamic of the helicopter. Then it has been analyzed the flight control laws; in particular the control in altitude, the control in forward speed and the control in roll attitude to guarantee the hovering or the flight path. At the end it has made the union between the controls and the non-linear model developed in department