The design and tracking performance of model predictive controllers for complex, control oriented, physics based helicopter models is investigated. A nonlinear model of the helicopter, which also includes blade flexibility, is first linearized around specific flight conditions like level banked turns and helical turns. Model predictive controllers are then designed using the linearized helicopter models and their ability to track discontinuous maneuvering trajectories is evaluated. The performance metrics used herein are tracking quality, satisfaction of heterogeneous constraints, and computation time.
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