Battery-aware dynamical modeling and identification for the total thrust in multi-rotor UAVs using only an onboard accelerometer

We propose and experimentally validate a new class of models for the total thrust generation in multi-rotor UAVs which is suitable for low- and middle-end platforms. Differently from typical models assuming to instantaneously control the rotor spinning velocity, in the proposed class we consider that the total thrust has its own dynamics and its final value explicitly depends both on the pseudo-setpoint commands given to the motor driver and the measurement of the battery terminal voltage. We compare the different model instances within the class using a principled experimental setup in which the total thrust is precisely measured using a motion capture system as ground truth, instead of relying on a setup based or noise-prone force sensors. We then show that the use of a dynamical model that includes also the battery terminal voltage significantly improves the prediction ability of the model in terms of accuracy. Finally we show how the proposed model can be identified using on-board only acceleration measurements, achieving a surprisingly good accuracy when compared with the ground truth case. We expect that the use of the proposed model will be important both in case of precise flight control and in the case of aerial physical interactive tasks.