Quadcopter Modelling and Control With MATLAB/Simulink Implementation

Abstract

Muhammad Usman Quadcopter Modelling and Control with MATLAB/Simulink Implementation, 68 pages LAB University of Applied Sciences Technology Lappeenranta Mechanical Engineering and Production Technology Bachelor’s Thesis 2019 Instructors: Senior University Lecturer Kiviluoma Panu, Aalto University Supervisor: Jukka Nisonen, LAB University of Applied Sciences; The objective of the project was to design a Proportional, Integral and Derivative (PID) based controller in MATLAB/Simulink to achieve attitude control of the quadcopter. A controller built upon the mathematical model of kinematics and dynamics of the vehicle was Implemented and tested on an Arduino hardware for data collection and control system evaluation. Internet was the primary source of information and study material on the project. Besides internet, books, articles and online training programmes related to the topic were also consulted. The simulation results of the designed model were quite satisfactory. On the real hardware the controller could lift the quadcopter from the ground while moving in random directions to achieve stability for hovering, as the controller was not de- signed to maintain the take-off position of the vehicle. However, because of hard- ware limitations, processing signals scaling and limiting time for PIDs tuning the take-off behaviour of the quadcopter was not as expected from simulation studies of the model. Further PIDs tuning is required for improved control and smoother flights. In ad- dition to this hardware board with more computational power, real-time wireless communication and better compatibility with MATLAB/Simulink can be introduced to make tuning process easy and safe. Keywords: Quadcopter, control system, PID, MATLAB/Simulink, mathematical model, kinematics, dynamics, Arduino, simulation, computation, communication, tuning