Fuzzy Adaptive Nonsingular Terminal Sliding Mode Control of a Miniature Helicopter

This paper presents a fuzzy adaptive terminal sliding mode control for an unmanned miniature helicopter including uncertainties and external disturbances, and a terminal sliding surface is utilized to provide faster convergence. Due to the fact that the presented controlled system is facing a singularity problem, the controlling structure is developed to a nonsingular one. In the proposed controlling structure, a continuous nonsingular terminal sliding mode control is combined with an adaptive learning algorithm and fuzzy logic system to estimate the uncertainties; and the parameter adaptation law is obtained based on the Lyapunov stability theorem. Analytical results show that the proposed approach enables a faster and more accurate tracking performance as compared to recent controlling methods.