Comparative Synthesis of Linear and Optimal Controllers for a Quadcopter Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Recently, unmanned aerial vehicle (e.g. quadcopter) has been used in many applications, e.g., search-and-rescue missions, because of its capabilities, e.g. vertical takeoff and landing. To achieve these missions, we need to design a suitable control system to stabilize and control quadcopter to track a desired flight trajectory. In this paper, we proposed a comparative synthesis between a classical and optimal controllers implemented on a quadcopter model. Moreover, this paper discusses a method of tuning gains of the classical controller using optimal control approach. Implementing these linear controllers requires to linearize the nonlinear quadcopter model around a steady state flight condition. The simulation results compare the performance of each controller under different model uncertainties and external disturbance. The results of this study indicate that tunning the classical controller gains using an optimal control approach responds effectively and provide more robustness compared to classical and optimal controllers separately in different flight conditions.