Research On Autonomous Flight Of Quadcopter

Quadcopters are increasingly being applied to the military, high-risk operations and general civilian areas, such as gather intelligence information in natural disasters or terrorist attacks region, real-time monitoring of movements of hazardous pollutants and the first person perspective aerial photography. Quadcopters do not only have great practical value, but also have good scientific value. It provides a platform for multi-technology research in the field of inertial navigation technology, sensor technology, automatic control theory and computer technology. Because domestic research is focusing on the attitude control mostly, quadcopter autonomous flight control research is still relatively small.After the practical, scientific research and other aspects have been considered, a small quadcopter which can fly autonomously was designed, and this paper does the following works:(1) The mechanical structure and flight principles of quadcopter are described in detail, dynamics and kinematics of quadcopter are analyzed, and a quadcopter simplified kinetic model is established. PID control algorithm is used to design flight controllers.(2) For quadcopter autonomous flight task, the constraints of the flight path are considered to conduct planned flight path. Based on numerical control system interpolation algorithm, a flight trajectory planning algorithm has been proposed. After making several flight tests, it indicates that algorithm is not ideal. Based on that, a flight trajectory planning improve algorithm has been proposed after the improvements to the flight trajectory planning algorithm of home and abroad application. The improved flight trajectory planning algorithm makes the quadcopter capable of autonomous flight according to the predetermined path.(3) A flight mission controller has been designed. Based on the planned flight trajectory, the flight mission controller gives flight control inputs to command quadcopter fly autonomo-usly in accordance with planned flight path. It is a core part of the mission control system.(4) Hardware and software of flight control system have been designed, the correspon-ding hardware schematics and software flow of control systems are given. Based on Matlab / Simulink control system simulation platform, PID self-tuning method is used to simulate the flight controllers, and the simulation curves are analyzed in detail. Finally, a test prototype quadcopter has been made to conduct flight tests, the tests indicate that the quadcopter is able to fly autonomously according to a predetermined planned path.In this paper, the flight path has been planned by considering the flight path constraints, a new approach of flight trajectory planning has been proposed based on numerical control system interpolation algorithm, and an improved flight trajectory planning algorithm has been put forward after the improvements to the flight path planning algorithm of home and abroad application. A flight mission controller has been designed to make the quadcopter capable of autonomous flight in accordance with a planned path. The feasibility of flight controllers and flight path planning algorithm are verified through simulation and flight tests. The target of autonomous flight has been achieved.