Dynamics and Simulation of Thrust Differential Based Quadcopter

Abstract

Quadcopters are multirotor drones equipped with four rotors where hovering, banking, forward and backward motions can be controlled by the thrust produced by the propellers. This paper describes simulation of the quadcopter dynamics through thrust differential. The thrust differential is obtained by applying non equal thrust between front and rear motors. The equation of motions can be derived using Newton's second law, and simulated in the Simulink. The focus of the work is on the longitudinal mode behavior. Continuous time integration of the input signal is used for obtaining velocity and position. Based on the output, a lesser amount of thrust differential and reduced rotation angle results in slower copter's rotation to the new position.