Implementation of an almost globally stable intrinsic nonlinear PID controller for attitude stabilization of a quadrotor

This paper presents flight test results that demonstrate the effectiveness of a locally exponential and almost-globally stable geometric PID controller for attitude stabilization. The controller is implemented on a low cost off the shelf Arduino based quadrotor platform. The controller requires only a rough estimate of the inertia tensor of the device. It is implemented entirely using the onboard processor and does not require any off board sensing or processing. The results presented show that the implemented nonlinear PID is capable of quickly stabilizing any desired vertically upright configuration for large deviations from the desired equilibrium.