Dynamic Modelling and Control for Quadcopter UAV with LabVIEW and X-Plane Flight Simulator

Abstract

This study presents a modelling and control method for the quadcopter based unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) using the software-in-the-loop (SITL) approach. The proposed SITL approach is used as a simulation tool to validate the control techniques applied to the quadcopter UAV before the actual flight test. The dynamics model of quadcopter UAV is implemented in the X-Plane flight simulator and the automatic flight controller is implemented in National Instruments LabVIEW software. The quadcopter has four actuators with fewer control inputs than the degrees of freedom, complicating its control mechanism. The controlled motions of the quadcopter are its forward, lateral and vertical motions along with its heading rate and attitude (yaw, pitch, and roll). The controller developed for the quadcopter under consideration is based on the cascaded PID controllers. In this approach, the quadcopter dynamic is decomposed into two cascaded loops (i.e., inner and outer loop controls). The cascaded PID controllers are implemented in LabVIEW and connected to the X-Plane flight simulator using the UDP data interface. The tuning of the PID controller is done manually and the quadcopter responses are recorded.