Flight Control of a 1-DOF Helicopter System using a Sliding Mode Controller for Disturbance Rejection

Abstract

This document presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of a sliding mode controller to stabilize the angular position of a 1-DOF helicopter. The dynamic model of the helicopter was found using the system identification technique with the MATLAB toolbox. Also, a classic PID controller was designed to compare the behavior of both controllers and their robustness and disturbances rejection. The simulation of the control strategies was carried out in Simulink and programed on the STM32F411 microcontroller. The PID controller performed well under normal operating conditions, but, with a sustained disturbance at the input, the system output with the PID controller began to oscillate due to perturbance. The Sliding Mode Controller was not the best in the transient state. However, it did show robustness to disturbance, i.e., under the same conditions when the PID controller could not guarantee and stabilize the output, the SMC performed better, with a little slight oscillation in steady-state but without leaving the criterion of 2% of the reference value in the input.