Construction, modeling and control of a quadrotor for target localization

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been widely used in intelligence gathering, psychological operations, laser designation, range-finding, and communication. In this paper, the design of a quadrotor UAV for target localization is presented. The control system is developed for the quadrotor UAV. A target detection and localization method is proposed for the developed UAV. The hardware construction, along with the selection of necessary components, is introduced. In order to facilitate modular code development and integration of control laws with simulation and hardware, a hardware-in-the-loop simulator is proposed. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate the performance of the developed system.