top of page

Results

    The main objective of this project was to develop a solution that increases the autonomy the quadrotor without removing much of its maneuverability. It was also expected that the solution developed taking account of the different loading conditions to the platform may be 

subject. In this sense hybrid solutions were explored: add a balloon to a quadrotor (quadrotor- blimp) and add a central propeller propelled gasoline to the quadrotor (quadrotor-helicopter). 

  Regarding the quadrotor helicopter, you must first reinforce the idea that it is the electric motors that imposes a limitation in terms of energy, so when removing these motors responsibility to maintain the platform in the air, as this function will be the burden of the propeller 

gasoline introduced, which has greater autonomy, the electric motors will spend less energy. To spend less energy attains the goal of increasing autonomy. In the case of the quadrotor- blimp, adding the balloon, which exerts an upward force on platform, the energy required to peel off the platform and keep the air is much smaller, and once again reduce the energy consumed by the electric motors increases the autonomy. 

    With these platforms, in simulation, we observed that the energy consumed by electric motors was actually less than the power consumed by them in the quadrotor that the main objective was accomplished. The other two goals were presented intrinsically the controller has adapted to the different configurations and the different conditions therefore load, and could roam the platform for which it was understood by which remained also some maneuverability. 

  Although these were the main goals set at the beginning, throughout the project was required the satisfaction of other conditions as they arose. An example is the sensing chapter, that emerged aiming to make this simulation more realistic and also more easily applicable to real situations in which there is no sensor that returns us directly the values ​​of x, y and z of the roll and the pitch and yaw. And since it is always better to use more than one sensor to estimate a variable so try to reduce errors, these values  were combined. 

    At the end of convergence could be in all Kalman filters as well as made a very small error in the complementary filters. Although convergence has been achieved of Kalman filters or all values ​​returned by the same may have to be used in the simulation as in the case of the roll there is a peak in the estimation initially of thousandths, but that, when these values ​​to simulate the controller tries to fix a peak that does not exist, causing instability in the platform and causes the estimator to be lost and not recovered. a solution to overcome this problem would be to start with the simulator and landed quadrotor the engines stopped, just estimate the values ​​through the filters, and when these estimates converge and stabilize the actual values ​​is that the driver was started. Since relatively the pitch and yaw results obtained allowed the use of estimated values ​​instead of actual values ​​with a possible application of this estimation in real cases. Regarding complementary filters became a simple approach of combining values ​​from the sensors that showed good results. 

    Making an overall assessment of the project two hybrid solutions that meet were created the main objectives were initially proposed and has been addressed part of the sensing given that these are an important component when the practical implementation of the simulation 

performed. 

    The solution developed serves as a starting point for innovative solutions, such as simulated be implemented in practice in order to solve problems such as low autonomy.

 

Conclusions

     There are ways to optimize the developed solution that can be addressed in terms of future work. Something that's priority will be to study the behavior of the roll well in simulation order to realize that startups should be made so as to estimate quite the same. this study should also be done for other variables when applied to the sensing platforms Hybrid air in order to confirm that the boots made ​​to remain quadrotor 

valid. 

Even the chapter on sensing an EKF can be implemented to estimate the yaw, or which they may be assigned any value reference. An interesting future work be based on using a quaternion estimator to avoid gimbal lock. Other work that could be developed is the simulation-quadrotor aircraft, seen to be a "a priori" solution that will increase the autonomy of the platform through its aerodynamic characteristics. 

This will require building the scene simulation platform and later adapt the control developed for the quadrotor for this configuration, analyze the results and adapting parameter values​​.

Future Work

© Joana Viseu,  2014 

bottom of page