The ServoHeli-20 Rotorcraft UAV Project

This paper describes research on the design, implement and testing of a small-scaled rotorcraft unmanned aerial vehicle (RUAV) system - ServoHeli-20. A turbine-powered UAV weighted less than 10 kg was designed, and its major components tested by a group of undergraduate students at Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shenyang, China. The aircraft was designed to reach a top speed of more than 20 mps and fly a distance of more than 10 kilometers and then is going to be used as a testbed for experimentally evaluating advanced control methodologies dedicated on improving the maneuverability, reliability as well as autonomy of RUAV. Sensors and controller are implemented onboard. The full system has been tested successfully in the autonomous mode using the multi-channel decoupling PID controller. The results show that the rotorcraft UAV can follow the trajectory which assigned by the ground control station exactly in the real windy environment.