equilibrium point to consider is ˙γ
∗
= −124.6rad/s.
The ˙γ−dynamics(24), linearized around the equilib-
rium point of interest ˙γ
∗
= −124.634 rad/s, has a
real eigenvalue equal to −0.419. As a consequence,
all trajectories starting sufficiently near ˙γ
∗
converge
to the latter. Then it follows that the zeros-dynamics
of (21) has a stable behavior. Simulation results show
that ˙γ remains bounded away from zero during the
flight. For the chosen trajectories and gains ˙γ con-
verges rapidly to a constant value(see Figure6). This
is an interesting point to note since it shows that the
dynamics and feedback control yield flight conditions
close to the ones of real helicopters which fly with a
constant ˙γ thanks to a local regulation feedback of the
main rotor speed (which does not exist on the VARIO
scale model helicopter).
6 RESULTS IN SIMULATION
To show the efficiency of active disturbance rejection
control (ADRC), it is compared to the nonlinear con-
trol, which uses a PID controller. The various numer-
ical values are the following:
6.1 Control by Nonlinear Feedback
We have a
1
= 24, a
2
= 84, a
3
= 80, a
4
= 60,
a
5
= 525 and a
6
= 1250, the numerical values are
calculating by pole placement as defined in (13).
6.2 Active Disturbance Rejection
Control (ADRC)
• For z:
k
1
= 24, k
2
= 84, k
3
= 80 (the numerical val-
ues are calculating by pole placement as defined
in (20)). Choosing a triple pole located in ω
0z
such as ω
0z
= (3 ∼ 5)ω
c
1
, one can choose
ω
0z
= 10rad/s, α
1
= 0.5, δ
1
= 0.1. Using
pole placement method, the gains of the observer
for the case |e| ≤ δ (i.e linear observer) can be
evaluated:
L
1
δ
1−α
1
1
= 3 ω
0z
L
2
δ
1−α
1
1
= 3 ω
2
0z
L
3
δ
1−α
1
1
= ω
3
0z
(26)
which leads to: L
i
= {9.5, 95, 316}, i ∈ [1, 2, 3]
• For φ:
k
4
= 60, k
5
= 525, k
6
= 1250 and ω
0φ
=
25rad/s, α
2
= 0.5, δ
2
= 0.025. And by the same
method in (26) one can find the observer gains:
L
i
= {11.9, 296.5, 2470}, i ∈ [4, 5, 6]
For the (ADRC) control, one can show that if the
gains of the observer L
i=1,2,3,4,5,6
are too large, the
convergence of ˆx
i=1,2,3,4,5,6
to the following val-
ues (z, ˙z, ¨z, φ,
˙
φ,
¨
φ) is very fast but the robustness
against the noises quickly deteriorated. By choosing
L
i+1
≫ L
i
(i = 1, 2, · · · , 6) , higher order observer
state ˆx
i+1
will converge to the actual value more
quickly than lower order state ˆx
i
. Therefore, the sta-
bility of ADRC system will be guaranteed. δ is the
width of linear area in the nonlinear function ADRC.
It plays an important role to the dynamic performance
of ADRC. The larger δ is, the wider the linear area.
But if δ is too large, the benefit of nonlinear charac-
teristics would be lost. On the other hand, if δ is too
small, then high frequency chattering will happen just
the same as in the sliding mode control. Generally, in
ADRC, δ is set to be approximately 10% of the vari-
ation range of its input signal. α is the exponent of
tracking error. The smaller α is, the faster the track-
ing speed is, but the more calculation time is needed.
In addition, very small α will cause chattering. In re-
ality, selecting α = 0.5 will provide a satisfactory re-
sult. The induced gust velocity operating on the main
rotor is chosen as (G.D.Padfield, 1996):
v
raf
= v
g m
sin
2πV t
L
u
(27)
where V in m/s is the rise speed of the helicopter and
v
g m
= 0.68m/s is the gust density. This density cor-
responds to an average wind gust, and L
u
= 1.5m
is its length (see Figure8). In simulation the gust is
applied at t=80s.
A band limited white noise of covariance 2 ×
10
−8
m
2
for z and 2 × 10
−9
rad
2
for φ, has been added
equally to the measurements of z and φ for the two
controls. The compensation of this noise is done by
using a Butterworth second-order low-pass filter. Its
crossover frequency for z is ω
cz
= 10rad/s and for φ
is ω
cφ
= 25rad/s.
The parameters used for 3DOF standard heli-
copter model are based on a VARIO 23cc small he-
licopter(see figure 1).
Figure4 shows the desired trajectories. Figure7 il-
lustrates the variations of control inputs, where from
initial conditions when k ˙γk increases quickly, the
control output u
1
and u
2
saturates. Nevertheless the
stability of the closed-loop system is not destroyed.
One can observe that ˙γ → −124.6rad/s as ex-
pected from the previous zero dynamics analysis. One
can also notice that the main rotor angular speed is
similar for the two controls as illustrated in Figure6.
ROBUST AND ACTIVE TRAJECTORY TRACKING FOR AN AUTONOMOUS HELICOPTER UNDER WIND GUST
337