Adaptive Tracking Control of 2-DoF Helicopter under State and Input Constraints with Verifiable Feasibility

Poulomee Ghosh, Shubhendu Bhasin

Keywords: Adaptive control, constrained control, safety

TL;DR: An optimization-free adaptive controller that keeps the helicopter safe and stable

Abstract: Ensuring constraint satisfaction of aerial systems under uncertainties and disturbances remains a fundamental challenge in safety-critical control. This work develops an adaptive tracking controller for a 2-DoF helicopter that guarantees the plant states and control inputs remain within user-defined safe sets, even in the presence of parametric uncertainties and bounded external disturbances. State constraints are enforced using a Barrier Lyapunov Function (BLF), while a saturated control law ensures that the input adheres to prescribed limits. Furthermore, an offline verifiable feasibility condition is established to certify the existence of a feasible control policy. The efficacy of the proposed controller is demonstrated through real-time experiments on a Quanser 2-DoF helicopter platform.

Submission Number: 2