A CONTROL SYSTEM OF A QUADCOPTER IN THE SIMULINK SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT VIA WI-FI SIGNALS

Abstract

A control system of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is considered, and the selection of a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) regulator in the SIMULINK graphical environment of the MATLAB software is carried out. The control of the objects and data transfer were implemented via Wi-Fi radio signals. The Parrot Ar.Drone 2.0 quadcopter with the written in the C language open-source code of the autopilot was taken as  a specific UAV, allowing one to use it for analyzing and modeling control systems of UAVs.   This gave an opportunity to develop the control system of the UAV based on the MATLAB software environment, and using the standard program code libraries.

The UAV control system developed in the SIMULINK graphical environment of the MATLAB software consists of three main blocks: a) the block receiving data from the UAV via Wi-Fi signals and performing its further processing, b) the block of motion control including four PID regulators, which control the angular and linear motions of the UAV Parrot Ar.Drone 2.0, c) the block «Ar.Drone Wi-Fi» that transforms the control signals generated by the block of motion control into the Wi-Fi signals for controlling the UAV. The PID regulators of the UAV’s motion control system were taken in the standard form of a ProportionalDerivative (PD) regulator. The coefficients of PD regulators obtained through the research were imported in the program code of the UAV’s autopilot. The analysis of results of test experiments is presented. 

Practical experiments were conducted at the Aerial Robotics Laboratory of National Polytechnic University of Armenia.