Adaptive attitude tracking control of a 3-degrees-of-freedom experimental helicopter with actuator dead-zone

In this article, the attitude tracking problem of a three rotational degrees-of-freedom experimental helicopter is studied based on adaptive fuzzy control method. The system unmodeled dynamics, external disturbances, and actuator dead-zone fault are taken into consideration simultaneously. The uncertainties and the faults are compensated by resorting to the fuzzy logic system. Based on adaptive backstepping technique and Lyapunov stability theory, state feedback controllers are designed such that the reference signals can be tracked by the elevation and pitch angles, respectively, within small errors. Finally, experimental results are given to demonstrate the reliability of the proposed method.