A Control System of The Miniature Helicopter With Stereo-Vision and Time Delay Predictor

The autonomous helicopter, an united project in IIM and USTC, has been carried on since Sep. 2005. The intended functions include autonomous cruise along a determinate path to the destination, and identifying & tracking the moving target on the ground guided by the stereo-vision and autopilot on-board. In case the helicopter is in an emergent or unstable state, its control is replaced by the ground center (GCC). This paper introduces the helicopter system structure including its autopilot, GPS, initial measurement unit (IMU), embedded micro processor, flight controller, real time flight datalog unit, on-board stereo-vision, and software structure etc. Because teleoperation is used to remotely control helicopter to guard against emergent state in flight, it is vital to analyze the communication time delay between the GCC and the flying helicopter. Therefore, after the system structure is presented, this paper emphasizes the real time control based on the first important factor, time delay prediction with the cybernetics.