Height control of UAV using off-board system

• Main Author: Ee, Tiam Boon
• Other Authors: Xie Xiaohua
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/54488
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Many autonomous functionalities of a quadcopter require the use of a ground station, and hence they are developed off-board. On the other hand, the Autonomous Stabilization System of a quadcopter is often implemented on a custom On-board controller. This project looks into the possibility of developing this system off-board, so as to achieve the ultimate goal of integrating all autonomous functionalities into one system running on a ground station. Autonomous Stabilization System consists of three controls: attitude control, height control and position control. In this project, the Height Control System is developed for a commercial off-the-shelf quadcopter on an Off-board System. A Graphic-User-Interface (GUI) program was developed which enables control of the quadcopter on the ground station. Wireless channel is set up for telemetry data transmission. The Height Control System is developed on the GUI program using PID controller. Autonomous take-off and landing of the quadcopter is achieved using the Height Control System. Also, the system is able to maintain the hovering height of the quadcopter within small error margin. Disturbance tests conducted also indicated that the system is disturbance tolerant. Hence this project has accomplished its objective.