Modelling, Simulation, and Implementation of PID Controller on Quadrotors

A quadrotor is a type of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that is popular for its vast applications due to its small size and maneuverability. UAVs fall under the category of drones. Drones are unmanned aircrafts or ships guided by remote control or on-board computers. They are high in demand because of their deployment for surveillance, product delivery, aerial photography and defence applications. Implementing a control system on a quadrotor can be very challenging due to its nonlinear functioning. Thus the motivation of this paper is to successfully implement the PID algorithm on the plant to achieve altitude and attitude control. This paper also compares a linearized plant system of the quadrotor with that of a nonlinear plant system. A mathematical model for the quadrotor, progressing from a uni dimensional to a three dimensional configuration has been derived. Newton-Euler equations have been used to develop the dynamic model. The simulation are carried out in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment and different PID controller tuning methods have been looked into for smoother control.