Development and Validation of a LQR-Based Quadcopter Control Dynamics Simulation Model
Publication: Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 34, Issue 6
Abstract
The growing applications involving unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are requiring more advanced control algorithms to improve rotary-wing UAVs’ performance. To preliminarily tune such advanced controllers, an experimental approach could take a long time and also be dangerous for the vehicle and the onboard hardware components. In this paper, a simulation model of a quadcopter is developed and validated by the comparison of simulation results and experimental data collected during flight tests. For this purpose, an open-source flight controller for quadcopter UAVs is developed and a linear quadratic regulator (LQR) controller is implemented as the control strategy. The input physical quantities are experimentally measured; hence, the LQR controller parameters are tuned on the simulation model. The same tuning is proposed on the developed flight controller with satisfactory results. Finally, flight data and simulation results are compared showing a reliable approximation of the experimental data by the model. Because numerous state-of-the-art simulation models are available, but accurately validated ones are not easy to find, the main purpose of this work is to provide a reliable tool to evaluate the performance for this UAV configuration.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The research program is shared with PIC4SeR: Politecnico di Torino Interdepartmental Center for Service Robotics (https://pic4ser.polito.it/). Contributions to this paper were as follows: Conceptualization, A.M. and S.G.; methodology, A.M. and S.G.; software, A.M. and A.B.; validation, A.M., A.B., and S.G.; formal analysis, S.G. and G.G.; investigation, A.M. and S.G.; resources, G.G. and F.D.; data curation, A.M., A.B., and S.G.; original draft preparation, A.M.; review and editing, S.G. and G.G.; visualization, A.M. and S.G.; supervision, G.G. and F.D.; project administration, G.G. and F.D.; funding acquisition, G.G. and F.D. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the paper.
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Published In
Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 34 • Issue 6 • November 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 4, 2021
Accepted: Jun 7, 2021
Published online: Aug 24, 2021
Published in print: Nov 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jan 24, 2022
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