Practical PID Hovering Control of a Laboratory Quadcopter Using Low-Cost Embedded Control Hardware and Software

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental setup developed mainly in the thesis work of a team of undergraduate students, who designed, built and controlled successfully a laboratory quadcopter. This project focused on the hovering control of a custom-built quadcopter with limited movement along a single vertical post, hence allowing safe operation in a typical laboratory environment, while leaving enough degrees of freedom for useful experimentation with practical PID control laws, which are often disregarded in the educational curriculum of a typical undergraduate control laboratory. The total cost of developing this equipment has been kept particularly low due to the adoption of a modern popular low-cost hardware and software Arduino-based platform and compatible sensors. Interesting future extensions concerning the possibilities offered by this new equipment for teaching, demonstration, project work, as well as research purposes, in the current laboratory practice, are also unfolded.