Design and implementation of model-free adaptive robust sliding mode controller for 3-DOF helicopter model by using time delay estimation

In this paper, a model-independent adaptive sliding mode control method based on time-delay estimation (TDE) for a three degrees of freedom (3-DOF) helicopter in the presence of external disturbances and types of uncertainties is presented. In this approach, the switching gain of sliding mode is determined adaptively in order to increase the efficiency in tracking the reference path and reduce the chattering. In the adaptation law which causes rapid convergence to the sliding surface, a small and arbitrary neighborhood of sliding mode polynomials is used. In this neighborhood, it is considered that the derivatives of the adaptive gain are inversely proportional to the sliding variables. In this approach, to avoid using the dynamic model that is accompanied by modeling error, the time delay estimation approach has been used. In the time delay estimation, creating a time delay signal eliminates system dynamics and uncertainties. The uniformly ultimately bounded (UUB) stability of the closed-loop system is also shown. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed approach is investigated by studying the simulation on a 3-DOF helicopter.