Thesis : Contribution to modeling, identification and control of a miniature helicopter

PhD defense : Emmanuel ROUSSEL

Team : AVR

Title : Contribution to modeling, identification and control of a miniature helicopter

Abstract : Control algorithms are at the heart of the stability and automatic flight capabilities of any aerial vehicle. Synthesis and simulation of control laws are based on a mathematical model of the vehicle, which must be a trade-off between simplicity and accuracy. Despite numerous studies related to modeling and automatic flight control of miniature aerial vehicles, studies on the coaxial structure is still an active research topic because of its specific mechanical and aerodynamic aspects. This work presents a complete system identification methodology applied on a miniature coaxial helicopter. Based on flight mechanics and aerodynamics, several models are built. They differ in the aerodynamic phenomena taken into account. They are identified, compared and validated thanks to flight data, highlighting important phenomena in the accuracy of the model.Several flight control strategies are then studied and evaluated through simulations and experiments with a prototype. The results are in accordance with numerical simulations, thus validating the whole approach.

This thesis was diriged by Edouard Laroche, professor at the university of Strasbourg and supervised by Vincent Gassmann, researcher at the French-German research institute of Saint-Louis.

The jury is composed of Mrs Marion Gilson, professor at the university of Lorraine (rewiever), Mr Nicolas Marchand, senior researcher CNRS, GIPSA Lab, Grenoble (rewiever), Mr Tarek Hamel, professor at the university of Nice-Sophia Antipolis.

The defense, in french, will be held on thursday 12th october 2017 at 2.00pm in room A301 of the pole API building in Illkirch.