An autonomous control method autonomously controls a small unmanned
helicopter toward target values, such as a set position and velocity, by
deriving model formulas well suited for the autonomous control of small
unmanned helicopters, by designing an autonomous control algorithm based
on the model formulas, and by calculating the autonomous control
algorithm. The autonomous control system includes sensors that detect
current position, attitude angle, altitude relative to the ground, and
absolute azimuth of a nose of the small unmanned helicopter; a primary
computational unit that calculates optimal control reference values for
driving the helicopter from a target position or velocity values; a
secondary computational unit that converts data collected by the sensors
and the computational results as numeric values that are output by the
primary computational unit into pulse signals; a ground station host
computer used as the computational unit for the autonomous control
system; and so on.