Quadcopter

Abstract: In the past decade Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become a topic of interest in many research organizations. UAVs are finding applications in various areas ranging from military applications to traffic surveillance. This paper is a survey for a certain kind of UAV called quadrotor or quadcopter. Researchers are frequently choosing quadrotors for their research because a quadrotor can accurately and efficiently perform tasks that would be of high risk for a human pilot to perform. This paper encompasses the dynamic models of a quadrotor and the different model-dependent and model-independent control techniques and their comparison. Recently, focus has shifted to designing autonomous quadrotors. A summary of the various localization and navigation techniques has been given. Lastly, the paper investigates the potential applications of quadrotors and their role in multi-agent systems.

Abstract: This paper aims to present a comparison between different controllers to be used in a dynamic model of a quadcopter platform. The controllers assumed in this work are an ITAE tuned PID, a classic LQR controller and a PID tuned with a LQR loop. The results were obtained through simulations for 10 different attitudes of the quadcopter, however, in this paper simulation results will be presented for the vertical attitude only (the remainder are analogous and were omitted for brevity).

Abstract: In this paper a Crazyflie 2.0 nano quadrotor helicopter (quadcopter) as an open source experimental platform for research and education in robotics and control engineering has been presented. This low cost, easily expandable and upgradeable flying robot is here characterized in terms of hardware and software. Three aspects, which demonstrate the potential of broad use of this unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) by researchers and students, are discussed in the paper. The first one is an acquisition of measurement data from test flights by the proposed, freely available “black-box” software. The second is the use of a new, advanced 4FLY Simulator in order to utilize the MATLAB®/Simulink environment to easily implement a mathematical model of Crazyflie 2.0 dynamics, as well as for a synthesis of various types of controllers with support of OpenGL cross-language in the visualization of simulations results. The 4FLYSimulator allows to test autonomous flights (and landings) with obstacles avoidance and to conduct learning and teaching the basics of Crazyflie 2.0 piloting. In the third aspect the authors outlined promising, preliminary results obtained in control of flying robot by pointing device (positioner) and with the support of a vision system, which basis only on a single Kinect sensor.

Abstract: Unmanned aerial vehicles are increasingly used to study atmospheric structure and dynamics. While much emphasis has been on the development of fixed-wing unmanned aircraft for atmospheric investigations, the use of multirotor aircraft is relatively unexplored, especially for capturing atmospheric winds. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the efficacy of estimating wind speed and direction with 1) a direct approach using a sonic anemometer mounted on top of a hexacopter and 2) an indirect approach using attitude data from a quadcopter. The data are collected by the multirotor aircraft hovering 10 m above ground adjacent to one or more sonic anemometers. Wind speed and direction show good agreement with sonic anemometer measurements in the initial experiments. Typical errors in wind speed and direction are smaller than 0.5 and 30°, respectively. Multirotor aircraft provide a promising alternative to traditional platforms for vertical profiling in the atmospheric boundary layer, especially...