Automatic Control of a Quadrotor in the Smart Building

Abstract: In this project, we investigate automatic control of a quadrotor UAV and discuss its possible applications in the Smart Building. The purpose is to construct a control algorithm for stable quadrotor flight and explore the use of UAV in a smart home. We derive the equations of motion for a quadrotor, construct a model and devise a control strategy to keep it stable in the air. The strategy will be to use cascaded controllers for position and attitude. Simulations are performed and the controllers are then tested in practice. In the simulations, we use lead lag controllers as they provide easy loop shaping and good performance. In the practical implementation, we instead chose to implement PID controllers, due to their wide use in industry, easy implementation and ease of tuning. The end result is a stable loop with acceptable performance in terms of positional control. A simple waypoint system is implemented as well, which is key for trajectory planning and enables the vehicle to perform various tasks.