Modeling and Implementation of Quadcopter Autonomous Flight Based on Alternative Methods to Determine Propeller Parameters
This work provides a practical solution for quadcopter design and control under resource constraints, serving as a baseline for fail-safe control in cases of motor failure, but it is incremental in nature.
The study tackled the problem of accurately modeling quadcopter dynamics without expensive sensors by developing alternative methods to estimate propeller parameters like thrust-torque and aerodynamic drag, and validated the derived model through simulation and actual flight tests.
To properly simulate and implement a quadcopter flight control for intended load and flight conditions, the quadcopter model must have parameters on various relationships including propeller thrust-torque, thrust-PWM, and thrust--angular speed to a certain level of accuracy. Thrust-torque modeling requires an expensive reaction torque measurement sensor. In the absence of sophisticated equipment, the study comes up with alternative methods to complete the quadcopter model. The study also presents a method of modeling the rotational aerodynamic drag on the quadcopter. Although the resulting model of the reaction torque generated by the quadcopter's propellers and the model of the drag torque acting on the quadcopter body that are derived using the methods in this study may not yield the true values of these quantities, the experimental modeling techniques presented in this work ensure that the derived dynamic model for the quadcopter will nevertheless behave identically with the true model for the quadcopter. The derived dynamic model is validated by basic flight controller simulation and actual flight implementation. The model is used as basis for a quadcopter design, which eventually is used for test purposes of basic flight control. This study serves as a baseline for fail-safe control of a quadcopter experiencing an unexpected motor failure.