Full control of a quadrotor

TLDR

The research on autonomous miniature flying robots has intensified considerably thanks to the recent growth of civil and military interest in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). This paper summarizes the final results of the modeling and control parts of the OS4 project, which focused on design and control of a quadrotor. The authors present a simulation model accounting for aerodynamic coefficient variations with vehicle motion and an integral backstepping control scheme for full quadrotor control (attitude, altitude, and position). The tuned control parameters transfer successfully to the helicopter without re‑tuning, and the system achieves autonomous take‑off, hover, landing, and collision avoidance.

Abstract

The research on autonomous miniature flying robots has intensified considerably thanks to the recent growth of civil and military interest in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). This paper summarizes the final results of the modeling and control parts of OS4 project, which focused on design and control of a quadrotor. It introduces a simulation model which takes into account the variation of the aerodynamical coefficients due to vehicle motion. The control parameters found with this model are successfully used on the helicopter without re-tuning. The last part of this paper describes the control approach (integral backstepping) and the scheme we propose for full control of quadrotors (attitude, altitude and position). Finally, the results of autonomous take-off, hover, landing and collision avoidance are presented.