Modeling and control of a hexacopter with a rotating seesaw

Abstract

This paper presents a novel multicomputer type with a unique structure. This structure allows decoupling angular motion from translational motion along one of the body axes, and by that, five of the body degrees of freedom (DoF) can be controlled independently. The proposed aerial vehicle is a hexacopter with six propellers, such that four propellers are attached to the vehicle body and the other two attached to a seesaw. The seesaw is free to rotate around a single axis that is fixed in the body frame. Compared to a standard hexacopter, this unique design improves the maneuverability of the aerial vehicle, without the price of additional actuators. As opposed to tilting-rotor aerial-vehicle, in the proposed design all actuators generate lift. The paper describes the dynamical model of the novel vehicle and suggests a nonlinear controller to track desired trajectories along five of its DoF. The performances of the design are demonstrated numerically.