Manoeuvrability Limitation‐Based Flight Control for Unmanned Autonomous Helicopter With State Constraints and Input Saturation

In this paper, a flight control scheme utilizing a fully actuated auxiliary system is investigated to improve the manoeuvring flight performance and safety of manoeuvrability‐limited unmanned autonomous helicopters (UAHs). A saturation‐like function is employed to approximate state constraints. A dedicated fully actuated auxiliary system is integrated into the control framework to address the detrimental impacts induced by input saturation and state constraints. The control architecture is developed through a backstepping methodology. The stability of the closed‐loop system is verified by Lyapunov stability analysis. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed control scheme effectively resolves the flight control challenges associated with manoeuvrability limitations in UAHs and achieves superior tracking performance under the presence of state constraints and input saturation.