Intelligent Fuzzy Flight control of an Autonomous Quadrotor UAV

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) are being increasingly used today than ever before in both military and civil applications. A Quadrotor is a helicopter with four rotors that makes it more stable; but also presents a challenging control problem. Characteristics that provide a clear advantage over other fixed wing UAV’s are VTOL, accurate payload delivery and hovering capabilities as well as a greater maneuverability. Thus, they can be very useful in natural disasters, search and rescue, aerial support for first responders, Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance military missions etc. Fuzzy logic control has been chosen over certain conventional control methodologies, as it can effectively deal with highly nonlinear systems, allows for imprecise data and is modular. Real Time Windows Target, MATLAB is used for real time sensor data acquisition and timing of control loops. The objective of this paper is to propose a control methodology and describe the development, simulation and implementation of an intelligent flight control module for a Quadrotor UAV.