A survey of quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Abstract

In the past decade Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become a topic of interest in many research organizations. UAVs are finding applications in various areas ranging from military applications to traffic surveillance. This paper is a survey for a certain kind of UAV called quadrotor or quadcopter. Researchers are frequently choosing quadrotors for their research because a quadrotor can accurately and efficiently perform tasks that would be of high risk for a human pilot to perform. This paper encompasses the dynamic models of a quadrotor and the different model-dependent and model-independent control techniques and their comparison. Recently, focus has shifted to designing autonomous quadrotors. A summary of the various localization and navigation techniques has been given. Lastly, the paper investigates the potential applications of quadrotors and their role in multi-agent systems.