Design of Quad Tiltrotor Attitude Control Experiment for Control System Education

The quad tiltrotor is a vertical take-off and landing UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). It has four propellers, each of which is mounted on four separate gimbals. This thesis presents an experimental design for the quad tiltrotor\u27s attitude controller.First, we detailed the mechatronic system of the quad tiltrotor and assembled the prototype. Then we derived the dynamic model using the Lagrangian method. Next, we designed a PID controller for our prototype using the feedback linearization method. Then we ran simulations. The results showed that our controller performed well when it came to tracking and stability. We also implemented the controller to the Pixhawk flight control board of our quad tiltrotor. Finally, we designed an experiment to test our attitude controller. The results analysis, which was performed with a MATLAB GUI that we developed, demonstrated that our design is practicable and flexible

Attitude control for a quadrotor UAV using adaptive fuzzy backstepping

With improvements on automation, computer, electronics and other technologies, applications of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have expanded from pure military field to civilian areas. As a multirotor aircraft, a quadrotor UAV has the advantages of simple structure, small size, high manoeuvrability, etc. On the basis of summarizing the current research situation of the quadrotor UAV, a deep research has been conducted on the attitude control system of the quadrotor UAV and two controllers are proposed to generate a stable performance: Back-stepping controller, adaptive fuzzy back-stepping nonlinear controller. The quadrotor UAV consists of two pairs of rotors and propellers, which can generate thrust and air drag. The dynamic model is derived using the Euler-Lagrangian method and Newton method with 6 degrees of freedom. To represent the model of the quadrotor, Euler angles representation is first derived. However, facing the gimbal lock drawback of Euler angles representation, unit quaternion representation is then discussed afterwards. In normal situations, model parameter uncertainties and external disturbances would affect the system output. Due to this problem, an adaptive fuzzy strategy is designed to approximate the uncertain model using back-stepping techniques with the Lyapunov stability theorem. Firstly, simulations are used to prove the mathematical feasibility. And then experimental results will be provided to illustrate the satisfactory performances of the proposed approach in real time