Quadrotor position control based on model identification and proportional-derivative algorithm

In this paper, position control for a quadrotor in outdoor environment is designed and is validated by experiment. The quadrotor used in the experiment is equipped by accelerometers which are used by an internal controller to maintain its velocity in the global coordinate, and a global position system (GPS) for location determination. A proportional derivative (PD) controller, utilizing feedback of the data location from the GPS, is used to control the motion of quadrotor, reaching a final position from an initial position. Identification of motion model is conducted to determine proper parameters for the controller. The experiments show that the quadrotor can achieve the final positions with acceptable errors in the presence of noise in the GPS measurement and disturbance caused by the wind in outdoor environment.