In case of engine failure, skilled pilots can save a helicopter from
crashing by executing an emergency procedure known as autorotation.
In autorotation, rather than relying on the engine to drive the main
rotor, the pilot has to control the helicopter such that potential
energy from altitude is transferred to rotor speed. In fact,
maintaining a sufficiently high rotor speed is critical to retain
sufficient control of the helicopter to land safely. In this paper,
we present the first autonomous controller to successfully pilot a
remotely controlled (RC) helicopter during an autorotation descent and
The videos below show our autonomous autorotations.
Autorotation descent and landing [mp4 (960x540)
, mp4 (640x360)
Autorotation descent [mp4 (1024x720)
, mp4 (640x450)