Open-Source Project (OSPs) Platform for Outdoor Quadcopter

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in quadcopter technology implementation in the real world; for instance in real estate photography, aerial surveying, periodic forest monitoring, and search/rescue missions. Generally, each quadcopter implementation required different sensors which are needed to attach and integrate into quadcopter system. However, the most critical part in almost cases is preparing the quadcopter flight performance and capability to be suited in any outdoor applications. Because of that reason, this paper has proposed an implementation of Open-Source Project (OSPs) platform as autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) quadcopter development that can be fitted for any outdoor applications or even in research experimental purposes. We started out with an explanation about the general approach that has been used in the development of a quadcopter testbed, and then followed with detail explanations in the OSP platform approach. The OSP platform is the most popular approach. The main reason is because of their flexibility in both hardware and software. The basic quadcopter configuration for autonomous flight also presented and applied. This paper also provided several outdoor experiments results in uncontrolled environment that have been executed using our developed testbed to evaluate their performance, such as attitude and altitude stabilization, interference and vibration effect, and trajectory mapping generation. Finally, throughout this project, we realized that the OPSs quadcopter platform has offered almost complete frameworks in the development of quadcopter for any outdoor applications or even as a research testbed system

Modular Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Control Framework with Integrated Payloads

Small unmanned aircraft are being used in an increasing number of applications ranging from emergency response to parcel delivery. Many of these applications are benefited when employed as a multiple-vehicle operation. Such operations often require tight cooperation between heterogeneous vehicles and often depend on integration with sensors and payloads. Multi-agent control algorithms can be implemented to control such systems but often require the development of an underlying vehicle communications framework in addition to a sensors and payloads communications framework. This thesis presents a single unified modular framework, named Clark, and supports heterogeneous multi-agent control and sensor/payload integration. Clark provides a wireless network between agents without relying on pre-existing communications infrastructure, and provides software interfaces for connecting to a variety of payloads. This thesis first reviews small unmanned aircraft systems (SUAS), multi-agent control, multi-agent control testbeds, and wireless networking technologies used on SUAS. Systems engineering is then employed to develop an Identified Need, Concept of Operations (ConOps), and requirements. All Defined, Derived, and Design Requirements are explained and justified. Some requirements are highlighted to demonstrate key features of the Clark framework. The software architecture is explained in detail in a top-down approach. Hardware is selected for prototyping and shown to meet the requirements. Bench tests, ground tests, and flight tests are conducted to verify the framework’s ability to communicate between agents and affect control. Ground testing includes a multi-agent cooperative mission while flight testing features two and three agent missions. Test results are presented and demonstrate the candidacy of Clark as a modular heterogeneous multi-agent control framework with integrated payloads

Controlling a drone: Comparison between a based model method and a fuzzy inference system

International audienceThe work describes an automatically on-line self-tunable fuzzy inference system (STFIS) of a new configuration of mini-flying called XSF (X4 Stationnary Flyer) drone. A fuzzy controller based on on-line optimization of a zero order Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy inference system (FIS) by a back propagation-like algorithm is successfully applied. It is used to minimize a cost function that is made up of a quadratic error term and a weight decay term that prevents an excessive growth of parameters. Thus, we carried out control for the continuation of simple trajectories such as the follow-up of straight lines, and complex (half circle, corner, and helicoidal) by using the STFIS technique. This permits to prove the effectiveness of the proposed control law. Simulation results and a comparison with a static feedback linearization controller (SFL) are presented and discussed. We studied the robustness of the two controllers used in the presence of disturbances. We presented two types of disturbances, the case of a breakdown of an engine as well as a gust of wind

Quadrotor Swarm Arena (QuaSAr) Development of a Swarm Control Testbed

Swarm control systems are increasingly popular in the robotics industry and academia due to their many potential applications. The goal of the Quadrotor Swarm Arena (QuaSAr) project is to construct a quadrotor swarm control testbed to provide researchers with the tools needed to experimentally investigate this emerging science. This testbed is equipped with a motion capture system, test control station, and numerous quadrotor UAVs. MATLAB-Simulink is utilized for control law development, data processing, and test control. This configuration allows researchers to test developing control law in a \u27plug and play\u27 manner as control development and test control are all completed using the same tools. Thus, the QuaSAr testbed an increasingly valuable tool to a wide set of researchers. Currently, the testbed is undergoing final testing and initial operation. Improved single-agent control methods are continuously being developed and initial swarm control research is underway. The combination of the completed and future work has promising implications for the continued success of the QuaSAr project

MAR-CPS: Measurable Augmented Reality for Prototyping Cyber-Physical Systems

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) refer to engineering platforms that rely on the inte- gration of physical systems with control, computation, and communication technologies. Autonomous vehicles are instances of CPSs that are rapidly growing with applications in many domains. Due to the integration of physical systems with computational sens- ing, planning, and learning in CPSs, hardware-in-the-loop experiments are an essential step for transitioning from simulations to real-world experiments. This paper proposes an architecture for rapid prototyping of CPSs that has been developed in the Aerospace Controls Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This system, referred to as MAR-CPS (Measurable Augmented Reality for Prototyping Cyber-Physical Systems), includes physical vehicles and sensors, a motion capture technology, a projection system, and a communication network. The role of the projection system is to augment a physical laboratory space with 1) autonomous vehicles' beliefs and 2) a simulated mission environ- ment, which in turn will be measured by physical sensors on the vehicles. The main focus of this method is on rapid design of planning, perception, and learning algorithms for au- tonomous single-agent or multi-agent systems. Moreover, the proposed architecture allows researchers to project a simulated counterpart of outdoor environments in a controlled, indoor space, which can be crucial when testing in outdoor environments is disfavored due to safety, regulatory, or monetary concerns. We discuss the issues related to the design and implementation of MAR-CPS and demonstrate its real-time behavior in a variety of problems in autonomy, such as motion planning, multi-robot coordination, and learning spatio-temporal fields.Boeing Compan

Aracnocóptero: An Unmanned Aerial VTOL Multi-rotor for Remote Monitoring and Surveillance

The Aracnocóptero is an aerial platform designed to capture photographs and images in multiple formats, and to carry sensors and scientific-technical measuring equipment. It is a collapsible, lightweight, multi-rotor, vertical take-off UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) aircraft made of maximum resistance aerospace materials. It includes a communications centre and a station base, which are transportable, lightweight and compact. The Aracnocóptero platform control and guidance software is composed of an agent-based system specialized in gathering and processing different types of information. The multi-agent system (MAS) that controls the Aracnocóptero uses different types of interfaces for its various applications and for the reconstruction of telemetric values obtained from the UAV. Due to its adaptability, the Aracnocóptero platform can be extended to a number of uses

Dynamic modelling and swing control of a quadrotor with a cable-suspended payload

A quadrotor is a highly nonlinear system due to the presence of aerodynamic factors such as Coriolis and gyroscopic effects when in flight. In meeting todays’ demands, the applications of quadrotors have been extended to include transportation and therefore, the study of Quadrotor Suspended Load (QSL) systems has become equally as important. However, the presence of the suspended load further complicates the quadrotor system as there is strong coupling with the load and excessive load swinging. This is a problem which forms the basis for this work. This project begins by providing a mathematical description of the QSL system using Euler-Lagrange equations as they are much simplified, yet encompass the many factors present during quadrotor operation and subsequently control excessive payload swinging. The main strength of this work is that unlike other previous work, it covers 8 degrees of freedom (8 DOF) in representing the system dynamics. This presents a much more comprehensive and definitive way of describing the quadrotor and payload positions. Input shaping is used as the swing controller as it is more practical and has been used for swing control of other systems. Validation of the swing controller performance is done using MATLAB SIMULINK. Unlike other controllers that require sophisticated algorithms for their implementation, input shaping will be used as a swing controller as it is much simplified in handling excessive load swinging

Mini-quadrotor Attitude Control based on Hybrid Backstepping & Frenet-Serret Theory

This paper is about modeling and control of miniature quadrotors, with a special emphasis on attitude control. Mathematical models for simulation and nonlinear control approaches are introduced and subsequently applied to commercial aircraft: the DraganFlyer quadrotor, which has been hardware-modified in order to perform experimental autonomous flying. Hybrid Backstepping control and the Frenet-Serret theory is used for attitude stabilization, introducing a desired attitude angle acceleration function dependent on aircraft velocity. Finally, improvements on disturbance rejection and attitude tracking at moderate aircraft speeds are validated through various simulation scenarios (indoor navigation based on camera tracking), and flight experiments conducted on the DraganFlyer quadroto