An Efficient Approach for Modeling and Control of a Quadrotor

Abstract

A quadrotor is a four-rotor aircraft capable of vertical take-off and landing, hovering, forward flight, and having great maneuverability. Its platform can be made in a small size make it convenient for indoor applications as well as for outdoor uses. In model there are four input forces that are essentially the thrust provided by each propeller attached to each motor with a fixed angle. The quadrotor is basically considered an unstable system because of the aerodynamic effects; consequently, a close-loop control system is required to achieve stability and autonomy. Such system must enable the quadrotor to reach the desired attitude as fast as possible without any steady state error. In this paper, an optimal controller is designed based on a Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) control method to obtain stability in flying the quadrotor. The dynamic model of this vehicle will be also explained by using Euler-Newton method. The mechanical design was performed along with the design of the controlling algorithm. Matlab Simulink was used to test and analyze the performance of the proposed control strategy. The experimental results on the quadrotor demonstrated the effectiveness of the methodology used.