2026 ECE 4550 — Control System Design Lab #9- Identification and Control of a Helicopter-Like System Georgia institute of technology GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
SCHOOL of ELECTRICAL and COMPUTER ENGINEERING
ECE 4550 — Control System Design — Fall 2026 Lab #9: Identification and Control of a Helicopter-Like System
Contents 1 Background 1 1.1 Plant Modeling............................................................................................................................3 1.2 Plant Parameter Identification....................................................................................................7 1.3 Cascade Position Controller Design...........................................................................................7 2 Lab Assignment 9 2.1 Pre-Lab Preparation....................................................................................................................9 2.2 Tasks............................................................................................................................................9 2.2.1 Identification Experiment................................................................................................9 2.2.2 Control Experiment.......................................................................................................10
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Background
Helicopters and drones are aerial vehicles that take off and land vertically, and hover in place, allowing their use in congested areas without requiring a runway. The simplest helicopter has only two propellers; its main propeller spins horizontally to provide the vertical force needed to control altitude, whereas its tail propeller spins vertically to provide the horizontal torque needed to control heading and compensate for body torque induced by the main propeller. The purpose of this lab project is to study helicopter modeling and control under some simplifying assumptions. This lab project will use the Quanser Aero 2 plant, which has two primary rotary motion axes driven by two propellers. The two motion axes can be individually locked or unlocked, and the two propeller orientations can be individually adjusted through a 90 ◦ range, thereby providing both helicopter-like and drone-like configurations. With both axes enabled, the nonlinear two-input twooutput sixth-order plant physics presents a challenging modeling and control problem, requiring multiple lab projects to address the full scope of issues that arise. Therefore, this lab project will focus on the pitch-axis-only motion configuration that arises when the yaw axis is locked. To prepare for this lab project on the hardware side, you need to read the Aero 2 User Manual which has been posted on Canvas. In that document, pay particular attention to the following: • The helicopter-like configuration, used in this project, is shown on the cover. Figure 3 shows both the drone-like and helicopter-like configurations side by side for comparison. • Figure 2 identifies critical components, including the “pitch pivot” which defines the horizontal pitch axis, the “yaw pivot” which defines the vertical yaw axis, the “pitch lock” which can be used to avoid pitch rotation, the “yaw lock” which can be used to avoid yaw rotation, and the “thruster rotation locks” which can be used to modify the propeller orientations.