Quadrotor Aircraft control without Velocity Measurements

Ruifeng Zhang, Xinhua Wang and Kai-Yuan Cai

AbstractIn this paper a quadrotor aircraft is developed
with the signals of attitude angle and angular rate being ltered
by using frequency analysis. A PD sliding mode controller
is designed to stabilize the attitude and position while a
tracking-differentiator is employed to obtain the estimate of the
required velocity. Experiments are conducted to demonstrate
the developed quadrotor can be appropriately controlled in
terms of attitude as well as position.
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, quadrotor aircraft has become as a popular
research topic [1-9]. The major advantage of this type of
aircraft includes heavy loading capacity, and simple but
reliable mechanical structure. Moreover, the corresponding
gyroscope moments generated by motors can be counteracted
each other. However, the attitude movement of this aircraft is
instable, so it is important to study the control of its attitude
movement. Wen and Kreutz-Delgado presented a kind of PD
controller for rigid body based on quaternions which can also
work in model-independent case. This controller is proved
to be able to stabilize attitude movement of a rigid body
with guaranteed transient performance, and robustness
[1]. Because a quadrotor can be treated as a rigid body
for the purpose of controller design, many studies on the
control of quadrotor aircraft follow the line of quaternions as
demonstrated in [1]. For example, a control method based on
linearization was presented in [2] to make a quadrotor aerial
robot almost y, while [3] proposed a quaternion-based
feedback control scheme which compensated the Coriolis
and gyroscopic torques.
Position control is also necessary to make quadrotor
aircraft y properly. Both the position and velocity mea-
surements or their estimates of the aircraft are needed in
position control. To this end, Pollini exploited a GPS re-
ceiver which was augmented with Initial Measurement Unit
(IMU) by an Extended Kalman Filter Navigation System
[4]. In [5], Hoffmann and Waslander compared the position
measurement accuracy of different sampling rates of GPS
fused with IMU. Experimental results showed that higher
sampling rate would produce higher accuracy of position
measurement. Ultrasonic sensors fusing with IMU [6] and
monocular vision with Moire Patterns [7] were also proposed
to obtain estimates of the position and velocity. Different
from the apparatus employed in [4-7], a motion capture
system (Vicon Positioning System) was adopted in the works
This work is supported by National Nature Science Foundation of China
(60774008) and Aviation Science Foundation of China (2008ZG51092).
The authors are with the National Key Laboratory of Science and
Technology on Integrated Control, the Department of Automatic Control,
Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing, 100191, China
zhangruifengd635@gmail.com.
presented in [8, 9]. Although the Vicon Positioning System
is capable of obtaining highly accurate position information
and achieving a high sampling rate, the way of calculating
the velocity using the position information was not clearly
provided in [8, 9].
In this paper we propose a tracking-differentiator [10,
11] to estimate the velocity of quadrotor aircraft by using
the position measurements collected by a Vicon Positioning
System available in the National Key Laboratory of Science
and Technology on Integrated Control, BUAA. In order to
verify the validity of the proposed tracking-differentiator, we
develop a small quadrotor prototype in the Laboratory, in
which a PD sliding mode controller based on quaternions
is designed to stabilize the attitude of the quadrotor, and a
control method based on linearization is adopted to control
the corresponding position. The information of attitude and
angle rate provided for the attitude controller is obtained
with an IMU and ltered by an integer-coefcient digital
lter. A tracking-differentiator [10, 11] is used to calculate
the velocity of the aircrafts in this paper.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In section
2, the mathematical model of the aircraft is given and the
control problem is stated. In section 3, an integer-coefcient
digital lter is proposed to restrain the effect of measurement
disturbances. In sections 4 and 5, the attitude controller
and position controller are given respectively. In section 6,
the indoor ight experiment results are shown. And, the
conclusions are given in section 7.
II. PROBLEM STATEMENT
The quadrotor aircraft under consideration consists of a
rigid cross frame equipped with four rotors as shown in
Fig. 1. The up (down) motion is achieved by increasing
(decreasing) the total thrust while maintaining an equal
individual thrust. The forward/backward, left/right and the
yaw motions are achieved through a differential control
strategy of the thrust generated by each rotor. In order to
avoid the yaw drift due to the reactive torques, the quadrotor
aircraft is congured such that the set of rotors (right-left)
rotates clockwise and the set of rotors (front-end) rotates
counterclockwise. There is no change in the direction of
rotation of the rotors. If a yaw motion is desired, one has to
reduce the thrust of one set of rotors and increase the thrust of
the other set while maintaining the same total thrust to avoid
an up-down motion. Hence, the yaw motion is then realized
in the direction of the induced reactive torque. On the other
hand, forward (backward) motion is achieved by pitching in
the desired direction by increasing the end (front) rotor thrust
and decreasing the front (end) rotor thrust to maintain the
Joint 48th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control and
28th Chinese Control Conference
Shanghai, P.R. China, December 16-18, 2009
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total thrust. Finally, a sideways motion is achieved by rolling
in the desired direction by increasing the left (right) rotor
thrust and decreasing the right (left) rotor thrust to maintain
the total thrust.
right
left
end
e
1B
e
2B
e
3B
e
1I
e
3I
e
2I
F3 F4
front
roll
pitch
yaw F1 F2
S
b
S
g

Fig. 1. Sketch map of quadrotor aircraft

In Fig.1, S
g
denotes the inertial frame; S
b
denotes the body
frame; =
_
x y z

T
S
g
and v =
_
x y z

T
de-
note the mass center position and the velocity of the aircraft
in the inertial frame, respectively; The F
i
lift generated by
the rotor in the free air (expressed in S
b
). The linear motion
equations are given as follows:

= v
v = ge
z

T
H
Re
Z
m
where m denotes the aircraft mass; g denotes the acceleration
due to the gravity; the vector e
z
=
_
0 0 1

T
denotes the
unit vector in the frame S
g
; the orthogonal matrix R
33
depends on the pitch angle , the yaw angle and the roll
angle , and is further expressed as
R =
_
_
cc css sc csc + ss
sc sss + cc ssc cs
s cs cc
_
_
(1)
with c = cos(), s = sin(). By quaternion, the kinematics
dynamics of the aircraft are described as
q =
1
2
(q + q
0
)
q
0
=
1
2

T
q (2)
R = R sk()
where the vector (q, q
0
)
4
represents the so-called unit
quaternion representation of the orientation (see [3] and the
references therein) with the q
0
and q subject to the constraint
condition q
T
q + q
2
0
= 1; the denotes the angular velocity
of the airframe expressed in the frame S
b
; the sk() denotes
the skew-symmetric matrix given by
sk() =
_
_
0
z

y

z
0
x

y

x
0
_
_
The attitude dynamics equations are
J

= J + (3)
or, equivalently,

= J
1
J + J
1

where J
33
denotes the inertial matrix and the

33
denotes the total control moment vector.
Use F
1
, F
3
, F
2
, F
4
to denote the lift forces generated by
the front, end, left and right rotors, respectively. Then, the
total force F
H
satises
F
H
= F
1
+ F
3
+ F
2
+ F
4
In the quadrotor aircraft, if the four rotors rotate at the
same speed, there will be no yaw motion as the reactive
torques are cancelled out (the reader is referred to [3] for
detailed discussion about this point). Therefore, we can get
_

F
H
_
= M
_
_
_
_
F
1
F
3
F
2
F
4
_
_
_
_
M =
_
_
_
_
0 0 d + d
l
d d
r
d + d
f
d d
e
0 0
k
1
/
1
k
2
/
2
k
3
/
3
k
4
/
4
1 1 1 1
_
_
_
_
where d denotes the average distance between lift forces
and mass center; d
f
, d
e
, d
l
, d
r
are the distances between
the operating points of the four lift forces and the center
of gravity, respectively; d
l
= |d
l
d|, d
r
= |d
r
d|,
d
f
= |d
f
d|, d
e
= |d
e
d|; the term k
i
/
i
( i =
1, ..., 4) denotes the ratio between the lift force generated
by the rotor and the corresponding reactive torque. Dene
M
F
M
_
F
1
F
3
F
2
F
4

T
then, we obtain
M
F
=
_

F
H
_
Now, we are ready to state the main objective of this
paper. That is, design appropriate lters and attitude/position
controllers for the aircraft based on the above mathematical
models.
III. FILTER DESIGN
In this section, an integer-coefcient digital lter is pro-
posed to restrain the measurement disturbances.
The frequency property of integer coefcient digital lter
is described by
H(e
j
) =
+

k=
h(k)e
jk
(4)
where h(k) represents the impulse response of the lters
transfer function.
In this paper, we choose
H(z) =
1 z
N
1 z
1
(5)
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then the (4) can be written as
H(e
j
) = e
j(N1)/2
sin(N/2)
sin(/2)
, N = 1, 2, 3... (6)
Noting (6), we can get an appropriate lter by selecting
N properly. For thirty percent of the original PWM wave
signal, the corresponding power spectrum is shown in Fig.2.
From Fig.2, we see that the high frequency components
have obvious saliences. To avoid big time delays, the degree
of the lter (i.e. N) should not be too high. And, it is better
to make the coefcient be integer. In our design, according
to the frequency-magnitude curve of the let plotted in Fig.3,
we select N = 5.
The power spectrum of ltered signal with N = 5 is
shown in Fig. 4.
From Fig.2 and Fig.4, it is seen that the ltered signal has
a better spectrum property than the original one.
Fig. 2. The frequency spectrum of a signal without lter
N=5
Fig. 3. The magnitude and frequency curve of the lter
IV. ATTITUDE CONTROLLER DESIGN
Rewrite the equation (3) as follows:
J

= J +
t
+ d
Fig. 4. The power spectrum of the signal after ltering
where =
t
+ d with the disturbance d and the control
torque
t
denoted by

t
=
_
M
T1
M
T2
M
T3

T
Choose the attitude control law as

t
=
m
+
a
(7)
where

m
= q (8)

a
= K
s
sign( + q) (9)
For the attitude control law (7), the sliding mode control
term
a
expressed in (9) is used to restrain the disturbance
d and the other term
m
expressed in (8) represents a PD
controller. In fact, without considering the disturbance (i.e.
considering d 0), the PD control term can render the
aircraft stable. However, to deal with big disturbances, the
sliding mode control term is required.
To show the stability of the resulting closed-loop attitude
system with the controller (7), we consider the sliding
variable s = + q. Let the Lyapunov function be
V = s
T
s
From (2), (3) and (7) we obtain

V = s
T
_
q + q
0
2J
1
(
t
+ d)

= s
T
{[sk(q) + q
0
I] 2J
1
J
+ 2J
1
(
t
+ d)},
where I R
33
is a identical matrix. It can be derived that

t
= J [s K
s
sign(s)]
where
sign(s) =
_
sign(s
1
) sign(s
2
) sign(s
3
)

Let
=
_
K

1
K

2
K

T
= [sk(q) + q
0
I
3
] 2J
1
J + 2J
1
d
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and
K
s
= diag(K
1
, K
2
, K
3
),
(K
1
>

, K
2
>

, K
3
>

)
Therefore, we get

V = s
T
( + J
1

t
)
= s
T
[s K
s
sign(s)]
= s
T
s
3

i=1
_
K
i
|s
i
| K

i
s
i
_
s
2

i=1
_
K
i
|s
i
| K

i
|s
i
|
_
(10)
= s
2

i=1
(K
i
K

i
) |s
i
|
<

Ks < 0
where

K = min
i=1,2,3
(K
i

).
From (10), we know that there exists a time t
s
such that
s = q + = 0 for t t
s
, i.e. q = for t t
s
. It then
follows from (2) that, for t t
s
,
q =
1
2
q
0
q, q
0
=
1
2
q
T
q
Select the Lyapunov function as W = q
T
q+(1q
0
)
2
, whose
time derivative along the solution of above equation satises

W = q
T
q
0
q (1 q
0
)q
T
q
= q
T
q
< 0
Therefore, q 0, 0 as t .
In the following section, we will present a differentiator-
based position controller for the quadrotor aircraft.
V. POSITION AND VELOCITY FEEDBACK CONTROL
The key of feedback control is to obtain the position and
velocity signals of the aircraft. We use Vicon system to catch
the position of the aircraft. The velocity of the aircraft is
obtained by the tracking-differentiators proposed in [10] and
[11]. And, the second-order differentiator is
x
1
= x
2

2
x
2
= a
10
(x
1
v(t))
a
11
|x
1
v(t)|

sign(x
1
v(t))
a
20
x
2
a
21
|x
2
|

sign|x
2
|
y = x
2
where 0 < < 1 is the perturbation parameter; 0 < < 1,
a
10
, a
11
, a
20
and a
21
are positive design constants, v is the
position signal obtained from Vicon system. Therefore, there
exists a positive number satisfying > 2 (where = ),
such that
x
1
v = O(

), x
2

v = O(
1
)
where

v denotes the derivative of the signal v, and O(
1
)
denotes the approximation of order
1
between x
2
and
v.
In the following, we will design the position and velocity
feedback controller.
Since the roll and pitch angle are relatively small, the
linearization method can be adopted. And, we choose the
position control law as
F
g
=
_
_
F
xg
F
yg
F
zg
_
_
=
_
_
K
1x
x K
2x
x
K
1y
y K
2y
y
mg
_
_
(11)
where K
1x
, K
2x
, K
1y
and K
2y
are positive parameters to
be specied.
We can obtain F
b
expressed in the body frame. Noting
that
F
b
=
_
0 0 mg

T
, mg = F
H
we obtain
f
g
= R
gb
F
b
=
_
_
csc + ss
ssc cs
cc
_
_
F
H
(12)
where f
g
denotes the gravity expressed in the body frame,
the transfer matrix R
gb
(from the body frame to the inertial
frame) is equal to the R matrix dened in (1).
To get the desired values of , noting (11) and (12), we
let _
_
F
xg
F
yg
F
zg
_
_
=
_
_
csc + ss
ssc cs
cc
_
_
F
H
(13)
Since , are relatively small, by linearizing (13) we get
_
_
F
xg
F
yg
F
zg
_
_
=
_
_
cos + sin
sin cos
1
_
_
F
H
(14)
From (14) we obtain

d
=
Fxgc+Fygs
Fzg

d
=
FxgsFygc
Fzg
(15)
With the F
xg
, F
yg
, F
zg
given in (11) and the measured ,
we can use the equation (15) to compute the desired values
of , denoted by
d
,
d
respectively.
By regulating the PD controller parameters, the acceptable
response can be carried out even without the model of
quadrotor aricraft. As a result, the closed-loop system is
stable. Physically, the aircraft hovers in the given position.
VI. EXPERIMENT
A. Hardware Design of Quadrotor Aircraft.
We develop a quadrotor aircraft prototype shown in Fig.5.
In this aircraft, an Electric Speed Controller (ESC, RCE-
BL35X) based on Pulse width modulation (PWM) is adopted
to regular the speed of Brushless Direct Current (BLDC)
motors. Its peaking current is 45A, and constant current is
35A, moreover, the input voltage is 5.5-16.8v. This type
of ESC is relatively cheap and reliable. Its shortest regular
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period we can get is 2.5ms by experiments. IMU (XSENS
MTi) is selected as the mail attitude sensor. Therefore, the
3-axis angles and angular rates can be obtained. A DSP
(TMS320LF2812) is taken as the driven board, which has
multiple PWM output channels. The control period is 8ms.
Fig. 5. Prototype of quadrotor aircraft
B. The parameters of the aircraft
The parameters are: m = 2.33kg, g = 9.81m/s
2
. The
moment of inertia is
J =
_
_
J
xx
0 0
0 J
yy
0
0 0 J
zz
_
_
where J
xx
= 0.16Nm, J
yy
= 0.16Nm, J
zz
= 0.32Nm.
Voltage range of BLDC motors is 6-18v, weight is 78g,
max power is 340w, and maximum thrust is 1400g. The four
rotors are all airscrew woody. The differentiator parameters
is chosen as = 0.002, a
10
= 0.1, a
11
= 0.015, b
10
=
0.3, b
11
= 0.3.
Flying test with motion capture system (Vicon system) on
guaranteeing plane is shown in Fig.6, while ying test with
Vicon system is shown in Fig.7.
In Fig.8, x is the X-axis position signal obtained by Vicon
system, whose time derivative, denoting the X-axis velocity,
is obtained from tracking-differentiator. In Fig.9, y is the Y-
axis position signal obtained by Vicon system, whose time
derivative, denoting the Y-axis velocity, is obtained from
tracking-differentiator as well. Fig.10 shows roll and pitch
angles. Fig.11 and Fig.12 show the front, end, left and right
forces generated by the four rotors, respectively. Though the
position signals have frequent erroneous readings from Vicon
system, the velocities obtained from tracking-differentiator
still have satisfying quality, and the noises are restrained
sufciently by the tracking-differentiator. At the same time,
excellent stability performance is obtained.
Fig. 6. Flying test with Vicon system on guaranteeing plane
Fig. 7. Flying test with Vicon system
Fig. 8. The position and velocity in x-axis
Fig. 9. The position and velocity in y-axis
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Fig. 10. Roll and pitch angles
Fig. 11. Front and end forces
Fig. 12 Left and right forces
The experiment video of the aircraft is shown in the
following web address:
http://you.video.sina.com.cn/b/19086673-1314556583.html,
or http://v.youku.com/v show/id XNzgzODE1MDA=.html.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper a quadrotor aircraft is developed, and a PD
sliding mode controller is designed to stabilize the attitude
and position based on tracking-differentiator. Through the
experiments, the tracking-differentiator can overcome the fre-
quent erroneous readings, and excellent position and attitude
stability of aircraft are guaranteed.
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