A Novel Overactuated Tricopter Unmanned Aerial Vehicle: Modeling, Control and Validation

This paper presents a compact, novel design for an omnidirectional tricopter that employs three rotating arms, each connected to the airframe through servo-driven mechanisms, to produce vectoring thrusts. The incorporation of a rotor and a pair of perpendicularly mounted servos on each arm allows for the control over thrust force’s direction and strength. Utilizing semicircular frameworks, the design effectively circumvents rotation angle constraints, contributing to an enhanced maneuverability and agility of the tricopter. Faced with the challenges related to non-paired propellers, including reactive torque of the propeller, the propeller’s gyroscopic torque, and the servo’s counter torque are considered. We propose a concise yet robust nominal controller with a compensation feature to address challenge, guided by the feedback and Quadratic Programming approach. Finally, we concludes with the verification of the prototype algorithm’s efficacy through simulation experiments.