Trajectory tracking and attitude control of an unmanned quadrotor helicopter considering actuator dynamics

This paper addresses the attitude and position control for an unmanned quadrotor helicopter considering actuator dynamics under different flight conditions. Nonlinear and decoupled linearized dynamic model of the quadrotor helicopter is discussed. Linear quadratic regulator algorithm is briefly introduced and executed for vehicle's attitude and position control. Using the decoupled linearized dynamics of the quadrotor helicopter, the position control is considered as an outer loop performed by adopting attitude angles to be executed as an inner loop of the control framework. Performance of the control framework is evaluated through experimental application to an unmanned quadrotor helicopter testbed under different flight scenarios and corresponding results are presented and discussed.