A gradient optimization based PID tuning approach on quadrotor

Quadrotor helicopter is becoming a popular smart equipment these years, in entertainment, transportation and military areas. Flight control is the foundation of all functions applied on quadrotor. PID controller, as a classical but reliable design, is widely used in quadrotor flight control. In the previous experiments, the PID coefficients are set empirically. In this paper, a coefficient tuning approach based on gradient optimization is introduced. The intended application is to tune the PID coefficients under an optimization cost function. This method is assessed by both simulation. The analysis of the experiment results gives suggestion in quadrotor design and parameter tuning.