A Project-Oriented Course on Guidance and Control of Autonomous Aerial Vehicles

Abstract

In this paper, a project oriented course on guidance and control of autonomous aerial vehicles (UAVs) is presented. The paper describes the different modules of the course and how they are addressed using the project oriented approach. The project uses a quadrotor UAV that is used as the case study during the course. In this course, the students learn how to mathematically model quadrotor UAV flight characteristics, develop feedback control algorithms to enable stable flight control and fuse sensor measurements using Kalman filter techniques to estimate the UAV position and orientation. Students develop these concepts through both simulation and interaction with UAV real measurements. Throughout the course, students build a full 6-degree-of-freedom simulation of controlled quadrotor UAV flight using MATLAB and Simulink.