1

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1.1. Introduction
As the advanced technology has been developed recently, the usage of
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) becomes popular and can be widely seen in
various applications such as military operations, surveillance, urban emergency
rescues, aerial mapping, films shots and so on. Some kind of applications such as
delivery service using UAV doesn’t require human operator to handle the UAV
during flying. The operation is done by flying autonomously from start point to final
destination using GPS guidance. This kind of system is called autopilot system and
many researchers pay more attention to this system these years.
A Quadcopter is a four-rotor helicopter. It is an under-actuated, dynamic
vehicle four input forces and six degrees of freedom. The basic motions of Quadrotor
are generated by varying the rotor speeds of all four rotors, thereby changing the lift
forces. The helicopter tilts towards the direction of the slow spinning rotor, which
enables acceleration along that direction. Therefore, control of the tilt angles and the
motion of the helicopter are closely related and estimation of orientation (roll and
pitch) is critical. Spinning directions of the rotors are set to balance the moments and
eliminate the need for a tail rotor. This principle is also used to produce the desired
yaw motions. A good controller should properly arrange the speed of each rotor so
that only the desired states change.
Quadcopter for military use were started in the mid -1990s with the High-
Altitude Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Advanced Concept Technology
Demonstrator (HAE UAV ACTD) program managed be the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency(DARPA) and Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office
(DARO).This ACTD placed the base for the improvement of the Global Hawk. The
Global Hawk hovers at heights up to 65,000 feet and flying duration is up to 35hours
at speeds approaching 340 knots and it costs approximately 200 million dollars.
 2

1.2. Aim and Objectives

The main purpose of this thesis to develop quadcopter for stability using
proportional integral derivative (PID) controller. The aim of the thesis is
 To achieve the altitude control of quadcopter
The objectives of the thesis are
 To understand the quadcopter control system
 To calculate the quadcopter parameters
 To model a mathematical model of quadcopter
 To simulate the model for quadcopter
 To adjust the aircraft stability by controlling PID controller

1.3. Scope of the Thesis

The main purpose of this system is to develop altitude stabilization of
quadcopter Unmanned Aerial Vehicle by using PID. Quadcopter UAV can take off
and land vertically, hover in the air and fly to desire direction by four independent
rotors. Its position and attitude control is achieved by adjusting the speed of the four
rotors. However, quadcopter UAV consists many kinds of control complexities. The
difficulties to track desire trajectory and providing the stabilization while operating
become challenging. These become more challenging if external disturbance or
perturbation due to wind is considered.

1.4. Implementation Program

Implementation procedures include the following:
 Select the components and build the frame with desired specification
 Studying the PID control method
 Simulation the stabilization result for control of quadcopter

1.5. Outline of Thesis

There are five chapter in this thesis. Stabilization of quadcopter UAV is
analyzed according to the following chapter plans. The first chapter is an introduction
to quadcopter. Chapter 2 presents the literature review of the quadcopter UAV. In
chapter 3,altitude stabilization control system for quadcopter. In chapter 4, simulation
 3

in result of control of quadcopter. Discussions, conclusion are discussed in the last

chapter.