Controller Design and Analysis for Octorotor UAVs

Abstract

Radar applications that include emergency rescues and natural disasters damage evaluations are critical and difficult to be done by humans. It was proposed to use small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in such applications because a UAV does not require a human pilot in it. In this work, an Octorotor with an altitude and attitude controller and observer are designed to control the vertical take-off and landing of the Octorotor is proposed. In addition, after reaching a certain altitude, a trajectory controller is designed using linear quadratic regulator (LQR) controller to move the Octorotor in x-, y-directions and to allow a translational movement at a constant velocity. Finally, a simulation was done to experiment the behaviour of the system under wind disturbance. A linearized model was extracted from the nonlinear model of the Octorotor. The results of both controllers clearly outperformed previous work. The model results were obtained via MATLAB/Simulink.