| Abstract: | A tethered rotor platform is a special type of a rotary wing drone. Its dynamical behaviour is mainly determined by the interaction of the rotor, fuselage and tether. Starting from a discussion of the control and stabilization problems involved, the paper presents dynamical models of the plant with special emphasis on tether dynamics. These models were developed for the analysis of the dynamical behaviour of the vehicle and in particular for the design of an automatic hover control system (AHCS). Two approaches for the design of an AHCS are discussed. One uses optimal linear control theory and the other classical control techniques, resulting in a cascaded controller-structure for the various stabilization and guidance tasks. A discussion of the hardware realization, the measurement problems involved and results of actual flight tests with the designed AHCS are presented. |
