19th IFAC Symposium on Automatic Control in Aerospace

September 2-6, 2013. Würzburg, Germany

Control of variable-pitch quadrotors

Fabio Riccardi ∗∗ Muhammad Farooq Haydar ∗
Simone Formentin ∗∗∗ Marco Lovera ∗
∗
Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria,
Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133, Milano,
Italy (e-mail: marco.lovera@polimi.it).
∗∗
Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Aerospaziali, Politecnico di
Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133, Milano, Italy (e-mail:
fabio.riccardi@polimi.it).
∗∗∗
Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione e Metodi Matematici,
Universit degli Studi di Bergamo, Italy (e-mail:
formentin@elet.polimi.it).

Abstract: The problem of control law design for a small scale quadrotor helicopter enabling
both speed and pitch control is considered. The tradeoff between speed and pitch control is first
investigated with reference to a linear design problem. The overall control problem is then posed
on the pitch control and is formulated in terms of an outer (position) loop and an inner (attitude)
one. The design of the controller for position dynamics is based on the flatness property, while
attitude control is dealt with by means of an (almost) globally stabilising control law.

1. INTRODUCTION trackable accurately by reflexive controllers. Flatness of

Small scale rotorcraft UAVs are a rapidly expanding re-
search area, see, e.g., the recent books Castillo Garcia
et al. (2010); Nonami et al. (2010). The control problems
associated with such systems are particularly challenging
for a number of reasons. First of all, rigid body dynamics is
characterised by strong nonlinearities, which lead among
other things to tight inter-axis coupling effects. In addi-
tion, most rotorcraft configurations (including both the
conventional main/tail rotor one and the quadrotor one
studied in this paper) are underactuated with respect to
the six rigid body degrees of freedom. Finally, parametric
uncertainty has to be taken into account because of, e.g.,
limitations in aerodynamic modelling and varying payload
characteristics. The state-of-the-art in linear control for
small scale helicopters is given by approaches such as, e.g.,
La Civita (2003), in which modern robust control design is
coupled to identification of linear rotorcraft models. More
general approaches available in the literature, on the other
hand, consider nonlinear trajectory planning and tracking
techniques, which can be adapted to all the main operation
modes of a rotorcraft UAV. Many methods have been pro-
posed, covering, e.g., control on nonlinear manifolds Lee
et al. (2010), adaptive control Castillo Garcia et al. (2010),
dynamic inversion Das et al. (2009). Of particular interest
are methods for planning and tracking based on the flat-
ness property of helicopter dynamics (see, e.g., Van Nieuw-
stadt and Murray (1998); Mellinger and Kumar (2011);
Formentin and Lovera (2011)) as well as procedures based
on smoothing of a given trajectory (e.g., expressed as a
sequence of way-points) by using a transcribed version of
the dynamics expressed in terms of motion primitives (see
for example Bottasso et al. (2008) and references therein).
In both cases the resulting trajectories are compatible by
design with the vehicle model, embedded either in the
algebraic flat model or in the motion primitives, and are
rigid body motion has been studied extensively in the
literature and has been exploited in a number of con-
tributions. More precisely, with specific reference to the
rotorcraft literature, the attention has focused mainly on
the trajectory planning and optimisation problem, see for
example Cowling et al. (2010) and the references therein.
Some contributions exist, however, in which control design
has been considered, such as Koo and Sastry (1999), where
the problem of controlling a conventional main/tail ro-
tor configuration using flatness-based techniques has been
analysed.
With specific reference to quadrotors, it is interesting to
note that, unlike full scale helicopters which are typically
operated with the rotors running at fixed angular rates
and controlled by varying pitch of the blades, most small
scale rotorcraft (with a few notable exceptions, see, e.g.,
Aermatica (2008), Cutler et al. (2011) and the references
therein) are controlled using rotor angular rate as control
input. This choice is primarily due to simplicity and
weight considerations, but it has been recently shown (see
Cutler et al. (2011); Cutler and How (2012)) to limit
the achievable quadrotor performance by tying it to the
bandwidth of the motor dynamics.
In view of this, the aim of this paper is to investigate the
problem of variable-pitch quadrotor control, with specific
reference to the interplay between the setting of rotor
RPM and the design of pitch-based linear and nonlinear
feedback control system. First the problem of maximising
the efficiency of the quadrotor by scheduling the rotor
RPM as a function of the flight condition is considered
and it is demonstrated that power savings can be achieved
along this line (not unlike recent studies for full scale
helicopters, see Gandhi et al. (2008)). Subsequently, the
design of linear pitch-based controllers for the quadrotor
is considered, and it is shown that simple gain-scheduling

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2013 IFAC ACA
September 2-6, 2013. Würzburg, Germany

can be used to recover uniform handling qualities for trim φ̇ = p + sin(φ) tan(θ)q + cos(φ) tan(θ)r
conditions corresponding to different values of rotor rpm.
Finally, the flatness-based control architecture first pro- θ̇ = cos(φ)q − sin(φ)r (3)
posed in Formentin and Lovera (2011) is briefly reviewed sin(φ) cos(φ)
and adapted to the variable-pitch control problem. ψ̇ = q+ r
cos(θ) cos(θ)
where p, q and r are the attitude velocities in the B-frame,
2. QUADROTOR DESCRIPTION AND MODELING m is the vehicle mass, Ix , Iy and Iz are the body principal
moments of inertia, Jm is the motor inertia and ωR reads
The equations of motion for the quadrotor will be pre- ωR = −ω1 − ω3 + ω2 + ω4 . As is common practice in the
sented with reference to two coordinate frames: the Earth quadrotor literature, the input vector (U1 , U2 , U3 , U4 ) has
inertial reference frame (E-frame) and the Body-fixed been defined so that the state rates are linear in the control
reference frame (B-frame) - see Figure 1. The angular variables. More precisely, the Ui s are defined in terms of
the thrust and torque generated by each rotor (Li and TLi ,
i = 1, . . . , 4 respectively) as

4
X
U1 = Li ,
i=1
U2 = l(L4 − L2 ), (4)
U3 = l(L3 − L1 ),
U4 = −TL1 + TL2 − TL3 + TL4 ,
where l is the distance from the center of gravity of the
Fig. 1. Quadrotor reference frames. vehicle to the center of each of the rotors.
The flight mechanics model used in this study is based on
position (or attitude) of the quadrotor is defined by the the rigid body equations of motion (see (1)-(3)). The rotor
orientation of the B-frame with respect to the E-frame, forces and moments are computed using a combination of
whereas position is defined on the E-frame. Furthermore, blade element theory and momentum theory (see Prouty
we will rely on the following assumptions: (1990)). The lift curve slope for the rotor blades and the
(1) the origin of the B-frame is located at the center of rotor drag coefficients (2nd order polynomial formulation)
mass of the vehicle; are calculated from an experimental thrust vs power
(2) the body is rigid; curve obtained through fixed-point rotor thrust tests. A
(3) the axes of the B-frame coincide with the body linear inflow distribution along the blades is assumed,
principal axes of inertia. with a Prandtl tip-loss correction. The vehicle fuselage
is modeled as an aerodynamic surface, its influence being
Define the six degrees of freedom of the rigid body as described through suitable look-tables for the aerodynamic
q = [x, y, z, φ, θ, ψ]T , where the triple (x, y, z) represents coefficients. The latter are functions of the fuselage angle of
the position of the center of mass (in the E-frame) and attack with respect to the total flow, due to rotor induced
the ”roll-pitch-yaw” (φ, θ, ψ) set of Euler angles is the velocity and relative to air vehicle motion.
representation of the orientation of the quadrotor in the
same reference frame. The dynamical model can be derived The control variables are the collective pitch angles of the
by following, e.g., the Lagrangian approach and is given rotors in case of variable pitch (fixed RPM) architectures,
by or the rotor angular velocities in case of variable RPM
(fixed pitch) architectures. The considered quadrotor (see
(cos ψ cos φ sin θ + sin ψ sin φ) Table 1 for a summary of the main parameters) has
ẍ = U1 teetering rotor hubs allowing flapping motion; the rotor
m blades are assumed to be rigid and quasi-steady flapping
(sin ψ cos φ sin θ − sin φ cos ψ) is considered (computing only first harmonic flapping
ÿ = U1 (1)
m motion) in the model.
(cos θ cos φ)
z̈ = U1 −g
m name symbol value m.u.
mass m 5.1 kg
inertia on x Ix 0.1743 kg m2
(Iy − Iz ) 1 Jm inertia on y Iy 0.1774 kg m2
ṗ = qr + U2 − q ωR
Ix Ix Ix inertia on z Iz 0.3206 kg m2
(Iz − Ix ) 1 Jm rotor-motor polar inertia Jm 0.000658 kg m2
q̇ = pr + U3 + p ωR (2) body center-propeller distance l 0.415 m
Iy Iy Iy Table 1. Parameters of the considered (Aer-
(Ix − Iy ) 1 matica ANTEOS) quadrotor.
ṙ = pq + U4
Iz Iz

207
2013 IFAC ACA
September 2-6, 2013. Würzburg, Germany
3. OPTIMAL RPM SCHEDULING
This Section investigates the possibility of varying the
rotor RPM on a variable pitch quadrotor as a function of
the forward velocity, so as to minimize power consumption
(and therefore maximize rotor efficiency) and increase en-
durance (a critical aspect for electrically powered UAVs).
A similar strategy has been studied for manned conven-
tional helicopters in, e.g., Gandhi et al. (2008).
Performing model linearization through an iterative pro-
cess, rotor controls (RPM or collective pitch) and vehicle
attitude angles were found to satisfy the vehicle forces
and moments equilibrium equations for a defined steady-
state flight condition (trim solution). Analyzing the trim
solution for increasing forward flight velocity (starting
from hover), a well known behavior can be observed: the
rotor total power (sum of induced, drag and H-force power
contributions) decreases with respect to the hover value
until a minimum is reached at a certain velocity, and
then increases again. This is due to the (well known) fact
that for increasing velocity the induced power decreases
continuously but drag and H-force power increase. The
trim collective pitch (fixed RPM quadrotor architecture)
shows the same behavior as total power for increasing
forward velocity.
The above phenomena can be exploited when considering
the preliminary design problem for a variable pitch quadro-
tor. Indeed, the maximum Take-Off Weight (TOW) is
obviously limited by the maximum available rotor thrust;
furthermore, the pitch necessary for hover at maximum
TOW should not exceed 70% of the maximum pitch to
allow at least 30% of pitch command available for control
and maneuvering. Therefore, when the vehicle is in forward
flight (up to a certain velocity), the pitch required for
trim is less than the 70% used in hover and it becomes
possible to decrease the rotor RPM to reestablish the 70%
threshold for each value of forward velocity, obtaining a
reduction in power consumption. To compute the optimal
rotor RPM curve as defined above, it is necessary to
compute the trim conditions from hovering up to a desired
velocity, for different fixed rotor RPM values. Hence, the
lowest limit of the total power vs forward velocity curves
(for different RPM) complying with the 70% constraint
on collective pitch, returns the constrained optimal RPM
value for each forward velocity.
The above procedure was applied to the model of the
variable pitch Aermatica ANTEOS quadrotor that was
previously characterized in terms of inertial and geomet-
rical properties, aerodynamic coefficients for rotors and
fuselage, motor data. Trim conditions were computed from
hover to 10 m/s forward flight velocity (i.e., the normal op-
erating range for the vehicle, corresponding to the zone of
decreasing total power). Moreover the calculation was re-
peated for three different TOWs: the maximum, a medium
configuration and the minimum (without payload). For
each considered TOW the following results are shown:
• the optimal rotor RPM curve guaranteeing the mini-
mum power consumption subject to the constraint on
collective pitch (see Figure 2);
208
• the single rotor total power curve both in case of
nominal rotor RPM and using the optimal RPM (see
Figure 3);
• the percentage reduction of single rotor total power
using the optimal RPM respect to the nominal one
(see Figure 4);
• the percentage of rotor collective pitch as a function of
forward velocity both for nominal and optimal RPM
(see Figure 5);
It appears from the Figures that the nominal rotor RPM
is optimized for hover at the maximum TOW. Therefore,
for decreasing TOW and increasing forward velocity larger
power savings become possible. More precisely, it is pos-
sible to save up to 1% of required power for each rotor at
maximum TOW, up to 1.7% at medium TOW and up to
4% at minimum TOW, with, respectively, a reduction of
rotor RPM up to 9% for maximum TOW, 11% for medium
TOW and 17% for minimum TOW. The variation in
rotor RPM needed to reach the optimal condition is small
enough to be handled without problems by the electrical
motor and the related electronic speed controller, so that
this strategy can be implemented in practice.
Remark 1. Rotor RPM reduction for increasing velocity
has two potential drawbacks. First of all, fixing the per-
centage of collective pitch to 70% limits the margin for
control and maneuver that would otherwise be available
in forward flight. Second, changing the RPM setting af-
fects the spectrum of vehicle vibration and therefore has
an impact on the design of the isolation of the Inertial
Measurement Unit.
0
min TOW
med TOW
−2 max TOW
−4
−6
Delta rotor RPM %
−8
−10
−12
−14
−16
−18
0 1 2 3 4 5
Forward speed [m/s]
6 7 8 9 10
Fig. 2. Minimizing power rotor RPM % variation respect to
nominal set VS V forward - varying TOW (complying
with constraint on collective pitch).
4. GAIN SCHEDULED LINEAR CONTROL
One possible concern associated with the above described
RPM optimisation strategy is the variation in handling
qualities perceived by the operator of the vehicle for
increasing forward speed. The aim of this Section is to
demonstrate that this can be alleviated by means of
a simple gain scheduling strategy. More precisely, the
problem of feedback control law design for longitudinal
flight has been considered. To this purpose, linearised
models for the quadrotor in forward flight at increasing
velocities have been derived from the simulation code
described in Section 2 and they have been used to designed
a gain-scheduled controller. The adopted technique is
LQ synthesis based on an augmented model to include
 2013 IFAC ACA
September 2-6, 2013. Würzburg, Germany

integral action for steady-state position regulation. While

150
opti RPM max TOW the design model is linear, saturation limits and hardware
nominal RPM max TOW
opti RPM med TOW
effects (as discussed in, e.g., Cutler et al. (2011)) have
140
nominal RPM med TOW
opti RPM min TOW
been taken into account in carrying out the simulation
nominal RPM min TOW study. Some representative results are reported in Figure
6, which shows the time evolution of the longitudinal
130
position, of the pitch attitude and of the commanded
Motor power [W]

blade pitch of the quadrotor in the task of tracking a

120 given (stepwise) longitudinal position profile, for different
values of forward velocity ranging from 0 to 10 m/s. As can
110

1.5

X Position [m]
1
100
0.5

−0.5
90 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Time [s]
Forward speed [m/s]
15

Pitch Attitude [deg]

10

Fig. 3. Single rotor total power in forward flight with 5

optimal RPM - varying TOW. 0

−5
−10
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Time [s]

Rotor Pitch Angles [deg]

0 1
max TOW
0
med TOW
−0.5 min TOW
−1

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Time [s]
−1
Delta motor power %

−1.5
Fig. 6. Linear control: responses to a step in desired longi-
−2 tudinal position at different flight conditions ranging
from 0 to 10 m/s (top: position; middle: quadrotor
−2.5 pitch attitude; bottom: commanded blade pitch).
−3
be seen from the Figure, even though the nominal rotor
RPM is decreased for increasing velocity, the scheduling
−3.5
mechanism can compensate for changes in the open-loop
−4
flight mechanics of the quadrotor and leads to almost
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Forward speed [m/s]
7 8 9 10
identical responses over the considered range of velocities.
Similarly, the control effort is hardly affected by the
Fig. 4. Single rotor total power reduction (%) using opti- changes in the operating condition of the quadrotor.
mal RPM respect to nominal - varying TOW.
5. NONLINEAR FLATNESS-BASED CONTROL
70
opti RPM max TOW A nonlinear system ẋ(t) = f (x(t), u(t)), with time t ∈ R,
nominal RPM max TOW
opti RPM med TOW state x(t) ∈ Rn and input u(t) ∈ Rm , is said to be
nominal RPM med TOW
opti RPM min TOW
(differentially) flat (see, e.g., Fliess et al. (1995); Levine
65
nominal RPM min TOW (2009) for overviews of the theory of flat systems) if
there exists a set of m differentially independent variables
w = [w1 , . . . , wm ]T , called flat outputs, such that:
Collective pitch %

60

w = G(x, u, u̇, . . . , u(δ) )

55 x = fx (w, ẇ, . . . , w(ρ) )

u = fu (w, ẇ, . . . , w(ρ+1) )
50
where G, fx and fu are smooth functions of their argu-
ments, at least in an open subset of their domain, and δ, ρ
are the maximum orders of derivatives of u and w needed
45
to describe the system. On the basis of previous work on
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Forward speed [m/s] the control of fixed pitch quadrotors (see Formentin and
Lovera (2011)), in the following a flatness-based approach
Fig. 5. Single rotor collective pitch % in forward flight with is considered for the control design of a variable pitch
optimal RPM - varying TOW. quadrotor, adopting the exact feedforward linearization
approach introduced in Hagenmeyer and Delaleau (2003).

209
2013 IFAC ACA
September 2-6, 2013. Würzburg, Germany
Flatness-based quadrotor control It is apparent from (2)
that (as already noticed in, e.g., Koo and Sastry (1999))
the control task can be decoupled in two subproblems
concerning attitude control, handled via U2 , U3 and U4 ,
and position control, that can be handled with U1 and
the reference values φ◦ , θ◦ and ψ ◦ . Therefore the architec-
ture of the quadrotor control system is composed by the
following blocks.
• A trajectory generation block, that provides the
quadrotor desired path in terms of the quadruple
(x, y, z, ψ).
• A position control block, based on flatness of the po-
sition dynamics and exact feedforward linearization
theory (see Hagenmeyer and Delaleau (2003)).
• Three passivity-based attitude controllers, see For-
mentin and Lovera (2011) for further details.
• A control allocation block, which determines the de-
sired pitch angles on the basis of the computed Ui s.
The position controller can be designed by considering the
reduced-order model given by (1), where the state-vector
is x = [x, ẋ, y, ẏ, z, ż], the input vector is u = [U1 , φ, θ]
and m, g and ψ are system parameters. The following
result holds. As was shown in Formentin and Lovera
(2011), the system (1) is differentially flat. Indeed, consider
w = [w1 , w2 , w3 ]T = [x, y, z]T as the flat output vector and
note that w is a function of the state, specifically the linear
selection
"
10 0 0 00
# globally asymptotically stabilizes the attitude dynamics
w = G(x) = Gx , G = 0 0 1 0 0 0 .
00 0 0 10
Obviously, first derivatives of x are linearly connected to
the first derivative of w and x = fx (w, ẇ), with fx = I6×6 .
Moreover, concerning the input vector, it can be shown
that
p p
U1 = m ẍ2 + ÿ 2 + (z̈ + g)2 = m w¨1 2 + w¨2 2 + (w¨3 + g)2 = mẅ,
and that φ and θ are expressed as in (5). Therefore,
w = G(x) = Gx is such that x and u can be written
as functions of w and its derivatives, hence w is a flat
output with ρ = 1.
Assuming now that the yaw angle ψ is zero, it can be
shown that the original control variables U1 , φ◦ and θ◦
are obtained as functions of new inputs vi , i = 1, . . . , 3, as
q solved just like in the case of variable RPM quadrotors.
U1 = m v12 + v22 + (v3 + g)2
!
◦ v2
φ = arcsin − p 2 (6)
v1 + v22 + (v3 + g)2
v1

θ◦ = arctan . in Figure 7. As can be seen from the Figure, a very
v3 + g
The new inputs are then chosen as the combination of
a feedforward part taking into account the desired rates
of the states, returned by the trajectory generator, and a
feedback part Λ taking the tracking error into account:
vi = ẋoi,2 + Λi (e), i = 1, 2, 3. For the correction term
Λ, in this work extended PID control is considered, see
Hagenmeyer and Delaleau (2003); Formentin and Lovera
(2011). Consider now the more general case in which ψ 6=
0. Note that the effect of yaw on position dynamics can
be interpreted geometrically as a rotation of the control
action on the plane (x, y), so that the modification to
the control law to account for nonzero yaw is simply the
210
following: the new control vector is no longer given by
v = [v1 v2 ]T , but rather by v∗ = [v1∗ v2∗ ]T , where v∗ is
defined as
v1∗ = v1 cos(ψ) − v2 sin(ψ)
v2∗ = v2 cos(ψ) + v1 sin(ψ) (7)
v3∗ = v3 .
It follows that the real control variables can still be
recovered from v, but this one now has to be computed as
v1 = w1 cos(ψ) + w2 sin(ψ)
v2 = −w1 sin(ψ) + w2 cos(ψ) (8)
v3 = w3 .
The v∗ vector can be used to place the eigenvalues of
the linearized system as before via extended PID. Notice
that in both the cases ψ = 0 and ψ 6= 0, this approach
allows complete freedom in the specification of the desired
closed loop performance as the nominal eigenvalues are
user-defined.
Attitude control is based on the so-called Modified Ro-
drigues Parameters (MRPs) σ. This set of coordinates is
such that σ = eE tan (αE /4), where eE and αE are the
Euler axis and angle that describe the three consecutive
rotations roll, pitch and yaw (see again Shuster (1993)).
Although MRPs still include the occurrence of discontin-
uous jumps in the parameter space when incrementing
the rotation, only 2π-rotations are forbidden. Moreover,
it holds (see Tsiotras (2002)) that the linear Proportional
Derivative (PD) control law u = −Kp σ − Kd ω almost
at the origin, for any positive value of Kp and Kd 1 . The
linear controllers can be tuned based on the linearized
model for the attitude.
Finally, control allocation, i.e., mapping the Ui s into the
rotor pitch angles αi s, amounts to the solution of equations
(4) with
∂L ∂L
Li = Ωi + αi , i = 1, . . . , 4 (9)
∂Ω ∂α
∂T ∂T
Ti = Ωi + αi , i = 1, . . . , 4 (10)
∂Ω ∂α
where the numerical values of the control derivatives have
been derived from the experimental characterisation of the
considered rotors. As the above equations are linear with
respect to the αi s, the control allocation problem can be
The proposed control strategy has been tested using,
again, the model for the Aermatica ANTEOS quadrotor.
The response of the closed-loop system to a step excitation
of the reference for longitudinal motion is illustrated
satisfactory response can be achieved.
6. CONCLUSION
In this paper the control of variable pitch quadrotors
has been addressed. First, the problem of maximising the
efficiency of the quadrotor by scheduling the rotor RPM as
a function of the flight condition has been considered and it
1 Note that almost global asymptotic stability can only be guaran-
teed, as obviously singular points are not considered. This is a general
point, since the topological structure of the attitude motion is not
a contractible space and it does not allow for globally continuously
stabilizing control laws.
 2013 IFAC ACA
September 2-6, 2013. Würzburg, Germany

 
 
w¨1 sin ψ − w¨2 cos ψ  w¨1 cos ψ + w¨2 sin ψ 
φ = arcsin , θ = arcsin     (5)
ẅ  w¨1 sin ψ − w¨2 cos ψ 
ẅ cos arcsin
ẅ

1.2
tion. In 50th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control
1 and European Control Conference, Orlando, USA.
X Position [m]

0.8 Gandhi, F., Steine, J., and Yoshizaki, Y. (2008). An

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Koo, T.J. and Sastry, S. (1999). Differential flatness
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