A Quadcopter Controller to Maintain Radio Link Quality

Abstract

The excellent maneuverability and the availability of a large number of sensors including good quality video cameras make quadcopters attractive for surveillance systems. Most video surveillance systems need a real-time high quality video stream from the cameras on the quadcopter to the base station which requires a stable and reliable radio link. Moreover, to ensure a controlled flight, it is essential to maintain a good quality radio link from the base station to the quad- copter. The quality of this link depends on the distance between base station and quadcopter as well as the ambient noise. Towards this end, we present a controller to hover a quadcopter at the maximum distance from the base station while maintaining the link quality at a given value indicated by the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). There are existing solu- tions in the field of robotics that incorporate the concept of link aware mobility. However, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first link-quality aware mobility implementation on a quadcopter.