Abstract： A novel method was proposed in this paper in view of the problem of stability and translation tracking control of small scale quadrotor helicopter. A dynamic model of the quad-rotor helicopter was established based on Newton Euler equation and the rigid body theory. A model of the relationship between lift and input control signal is established by secondary fitting. The adaptive control-optimization (ACO) method is applied to the control system for the first time, by which the attitude stability and translation tracking control of the quad-rotor helicopter was realized. The results of realflight experiment show that adaptive controloptimization (ACO) method has better robustness and real-time performance on attitude and translation control in comparison with common adaptive control methods.