Design, implementation and control of a small-scale UAV quadrotor

This paper presents a systematic approach to developing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) quadrotor systems. The system is built up based on a radio-controlled (R/C) quadrotor frame. With the careful selection of onboard hardware components, a physical avionics system is developed to interact with onboard sensors and actuators as well as perform data processing. To realize the control of the quadrotor, the values of control parameters need to be obtained in simulation prior to implementing physical hardware. Therefore, a nonlinear dynamic model is built for designing the controller in simulation. Finally, the developed control laws are performed and evaluated in both simulation and actual flight tests. The experimental results show that the designed quadrotor system exhibits a satisfactory performance and it is competent as an effective tool for conducting the further investigation of UAV research.