Flight Trajectory Tracking for a Helicopter in Tail Rotor Failure

Abstract

A helicopter in tail rotor failure that cannot perform emergency landing due to lack of available landing area is under investigation. In the previous study, flight trajectories for a helicopter in tail rotor failure were generated for different scenarios. In this work, the trajectory optimization process is enhanced and trajectory tracking is achieved by linear and nonlinear simulations. For the study, the generic helicopter model in FLIGHTLAB is used and a tail rotor failed model is created. The path generation process is performed offline in MATLAB with an open-source trajectory optimization tool, OptimTraj. The trajectories are obtained by making im-provements in the definitions of optimization constraints and in the linear models. The trajectories are given as a reference to the tracking controllers and the simulations are performed. For nonlinear simulations, real-time module of FLIGHTLAB is utilized and the run-time model and the controller which are in separate envi-ronments are interconnected.