The Phoenix Drone: An Open-Source Dual-Rotor Tail-Sitter Platform for Research and Education

In this paper, we introduce the Phoenix drone: the first completely open-source tail-sitter micro aerial vehicle (MAV) platform. The vehicle has a highly versatile, dual-rotor design and is engineered to be low-cost and easily extensible/modifiable. Our open-source release includes all of the design documents, software resources, and simulation tools needed to build and fly a high-performance tail-sitter for research and educational purposes. The drone has been developed for precision flight with a high degree of control authority. Our design methodology included extensive testing and characterization of the aerodynamic properties of the vehicle. The platform incorporates many off-the-shelf components and 3D-printed parts, in order to keep the cost down. Nonetheless, the paper includes results from flight trials which demonstrate that the vehicle is capable of very stable hovering and accurate trajectory tracking. Our hope is that the open-source Phoenix reference design will be useful to both researchers and educators. In particular, the details in this paper and the available open-source materials should enable learners to gain an understanding of aerodynamics, flight control, state estimation, software design, and simulation, while experimenting with a unique aerial robot.Comment: In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA'19), Montreal, Canada, May 20-24, 201

Analysis of the effects on the pitching, rolling and yawing rate of a v-tail configured quadcopter

Many different projects have been focused on multirotor aircraft, especially on quadcopters, but there are only a few papers relating to the dynamic effects on quadcopters with tilted motors. In this paper, a quadcopter has been modelled to allow flight simulation under differing motor tilt angle configurations. The simulation has also been validated by building a quadcopter of known physical attributes and with on-board instrumentation and telemetry to log its attitude and motor control inputs (PWM signals). The conversion from a PWM signal to the rpm was achieved by determining the relationship between the PWM signal and the thrust generated. Both of these parameters being recorded on a test bench. Thrust is calculated for each motor individually, since the angled motors generate different advance ratios and hence different thrust coefficients. The main focus of this research was on the effect of the different coefficients and the thrust components acting in the x-y plane of the quadcopter body frame

Design/Development of Mini/Micro Air Vehicles through Modelling and Simulation: Case of an Autonomous Quadrotor

Design and development of an autonomous quadrotor micro aerial vehicle is undertaken following a systematic approach. A fairly detailed model was constructed and simulations were then carried out with the purpose of refining the baseline design, building a controller, and testing the flying qualities of the vehicle on a ground-based flight simulator. Following this, a smooth transition to rig and flight testing has been enabled in a cost- and time-effective manner, meeting all the design requirements.Defence Science Journal, 2011, 61(4), pp.337-345, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.61.108

Survey on Aerial Multirotor Design: a Taxonomy Based on Input Allocation

This paper reviews the impact of multirotor aerial vehicles designs on their abilities in terms of tasks and system properties. We propose a general taxonomy to characterize and describe multirotor aerial vehicles and their design, which we apply exhaustively on the vast literature available. Thanks to the systematic characterization of the designs we exhibit groups of designs having the same abilities in terms of achievable tasks and system properties. In particular, we organize the literature review based on the number of atomic actuation units and we discuss global properties arising from their choice and spatial distribution in the designs. Finally, we provide a discussion on the common traits of the designs found in the literature and the main future open problems

Design of Self-tuning PID Controller Parameters Using Fuzzy Logic Controller for Quad-rotor Helicopter

This paper presents the design of a Fuzzy PID controller (FPID) based on fuzzy logic with a PID structure with many valued logic and reasoning. The self-turning Fuzzy PID control take in an error and the rate of change of error of the altitude and attitude of the quadrotor as the input to the fuzzy controller and use the fuzzy rules to adjust the PID parameter automatically. Simulations have been conducted to observe the differences in controlling the quadrotor in flight using the new FPID controller instead of using PID controller. The effectiveness of the developed FPID is verified using the dSPACE platform whereby the Simulink model of the controller is converted to a real time system to generate the control signals for the control of quad rotor helicopter

Modeling and identification of a quadrotor using LPV techniques

The aim of this project is to modelize a LPV model and to compare different identification methods. In order to accomplish that, first of all a white box model of the quadrotor has been provided. This model has been used to find a LPV description that can be used in this case. With this data various identification procedures has been tested. This project is focused in the use of particle filters to identify the parameters of the system

Nonlinear Feedback Control of Axisymmetric Aerial Vehicles

We investigate the use of simple aerodynamic models for the feedback control of aerial vehicles with large flight envelopes. Thrust-propelled vehicles with a body shape symmetric with respect to the thrust axis are considered. Upon a condition on the aerodynamic characteristics of the vehicle, we show that the equilibrium orientation can be explicitly determined as a function of the desired flight velocity. This allows for the adaptation of previously proposed control design approaches based on the thrust direction control paradigm. Simulation results conducted by using measured aerodynamic characteristics of quasi-axisymmetric bodies illustrate the soundness of the proposed approach