Aerodynamics and control of autonomous quadrotor helicopters in aggressive maneuvering

Quadrotor helicopters have become increasingly important in recent years as platforms for both research and commercial unmanned aerial vehicle applications. This paper extends previous work on several important aerodynamic effects impacting quadrotor flight in regimes beyond nominal hover conditions. The implications of these effects on quadrotor performance are investigated and control techniques are presented that compensate for them accordingly. The analysis and control systems are validated on the Stanford Testbed of Autonomous Rotorcraft for Multi-Agent Control quadrotor helicopter testbed by performing the quadrotor equivalent of the stall turn aerobatic maneuver. Flight results demonstrate the accuracy of the aerodynamic models and improved control performance with the proposed control schemes.