Experimental Verification of Lead-Lag Compensators on a Twin Rotor System

Twin rotor system is a laboratory setup resembling a simplified helicopter model that moves along both horizontal and vertical axes. The literature on control of twin rotor systems reflects a good amount of research on designing PID controllers and their extensions considering several aspects, as well as onsome nonlinear controllers. However, there is almost no previous work on design of lag-lead type compensators for twin rotor systems. In this study, by considering this open research problem, lag and lead type compensators are designed and then experimentally verified on the twin rotor system. Specifically, first, lag and lag-lag compensators are designed to obtain a reduced steady state error as compared with proportional controllers. Secondly, lead compensation is discussed to obtain a reduced overshoot. Finally, lag-lead compensators are designed to make use of their favorable properties. All compensators are applied to the twin rotor system in our laboratory. From experimental studies, it was observed that steady state error was reduced when a lag compensator was used in conjunction with a lead compensator.