Autonomous control and target tracking algorithm design for a quadrotor

In this paper, the task of Mission 7 of International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) is investigated. The quadrotor is required to autonomously navigate in a GPS-denied environment, and accomplish physical interaction with ground moving targets. In order to estimate the position of the quadrotor, a multi-sensor-compensation based method is designed and individual measurement errors are compensated. Also an extended Kalman filer (EKF) is utilized for attitude estimation. To accomplish the target tracking task, a path planning algorithm is designed under the constraints of quadrotor dynamics, and consecutive waypoint setpoints are generated. Then lower-level cascaded PID controllers are adopted to track the command waypoint. Finally, simulation and experimental results show the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed methods.