Development, Modelling and Control of a Multirotor Vehicle

Abstract: The interest of drones in all forms has exploded in the recent years. The development of multirotor vehicles such as quadcopters and octocopters, has reached a point where they are cheap and versatile enough to start becoming a part of everyday life. It is clear to say that the future applications seem limitless. This thesis goes through the steps of development, modelling and control design of an octocopter system. The developed octocopter builds on a concept of using the mini computer Raspberry Pi together with the code generation functionality of Matlab/Simulink. The mathematical modelling of the octocopter includes the thrust and torques generated by the propellers, added with gyroscopic torque. These are combined with the aerodynamic effects caused by incoming air. The importance of modelling the later mentioned effects has increased with the demand of precise controlled extreme manoeuvres. A full state feedback based hybrid controller scheme is designed against a linearized model, which makes use of the motor dynamics. The controllers show good performance in simulations and are approved for flight tests, which are conducted on two separate occasions. The octocopter makes two successful flights, proving that the concept can be applied on multirotor vehicles. However, there is a miss-match between the mathematical model and the physical octocopter, leaving questions for future work.