Dynamic inversion based flight control for autonomous RMAX helicopter

A dynamic inversion based flight control architecture is developed for autonomous operation of the Yamaha RMAX helicopter. The controller is composed of a nested sequence of attitude, velocity and position dynamic inversion loops with feedforward of acceleration and velocity commands. This architecture greatly improves trajectory tracking for quick collision avoidance and trajectory tracking or position keeping in windy conditions. Sensitivity to modeling errors is reduced by relying on residualized models of the aircraft and exploiting the stabilizer bar and yaw rate gyro feedback. The closed loop system performance is analyzed for both hover and cruise conditions.