Scaled control performance benchmarks and maneuvers for small-scale unmanned helicopters

The paper proposes a methodology for designing trajectories to form a basis for evaluating and comparing performance of navigation controllers on any small-scale helicopter platforms, as there currently exist no benchmarks for small-scale helicopters. Consideration is given to maneuvers designed to evaluate full-scale helicopter/pilot combinations adapting them to the dynamics of small-scale helicopters. Two helicopter models are used as experimental testbeds: the DU²SRI Bergen Industrial Turbine and Raptor SE90 helicopters. Three different controllers, ℋ_∞, LQR, and PID, are tested against the scaled maneuvers in order to evaluate and compare the performance of each controller. Trajectories are designed according to the proposed scaling laws and they are chosen to be outside and well within the capabilities of the helicopter dynamics to demonstrate the importance of selecting trajectories that both exploit the controller weaknesses while remaining within the flight capabilities of the helicopter.