Development of an intelligent unmanned helicopter

This paper describes the current status of and recent results from LIFE and the Sugeno Laboratory project on autonomous control of an unmanned helicopter. A fuzzy-logic-based control system has been developed that enables single inputs (e.g. voice commands) to replace the aircraft´s normal set of rudder, collective, longitudinal cyclic, and lateral cyclic control inputs. This development has enabled us to demonstrate that a novice can use such a system to effectively control an unmanned helicopter without prior knowledge of the vehicle´s flight dynamics. A set of sensors including an inertial flight measurement unit, microwave speed meters, a laser height meter, and a magnetic azimuth sensor have been installed on the aircraft to provide measurements of position, attitude, and higher-order kinematic information. In addition, a movable CCD camera and on-board image processing unit have been added to extract information about the helicopter´s visual environment