Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Design and Control of a Single Tilt Tri-Rotor Aerial Vehicle

  • Published:
Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to outline a design process of an attitude control system for unmanned rotorcraft. This small-scale unmanned aerial robot’s concept is based on three rotors and one single tilt mechanism. Final design is consisted of mechanical construction, measurement system including navigation algorithm, as well as control structure and algorithm implementation at the last stage. It is important to underline that high attention was focused on the measurements filtering, estimation of the angular position, and in particular the practical aspects of the control implementation. Furthermore, a PID algorithm including various modified loop structures was studied. On the whole, it is worth to mention that the design, analysis and the validation tests were undertaken on the experimental aerial platform.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.

References

  1. Tayebi, A., McGilvray, S.: Attitude stabilization of a VTOL quadrotor aircraft. IEEE Trans. Control Syst. Technol. 14(3), 562–571 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Chiou, J.S., Tran, H.K., Peng, S.T.: Attitude control of a single tilt Tri-rotor UAV system: dynamic modeling and each channel’s nonlinear controllers design. Mathematical Problems in Engineering, vol. 2013. Hindawi Publishing Corporation (2013)

  3. Nonami, K., Kendoul, F., Suzuki, S., Wang, W., Nakzawa, D.: Autonomous flying robots, 1st edn. Spirnger, London (2010)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  4. Raptis, I.A., Valavanis, K.P.: Linear and nonlinear control of small-scale unmanned helicopters. Springer, Dordrecht (2011)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  5. Valavanis, K.P.: Advances in unmanned aerial vehicles. Springer, The Netherlands (2007)

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  6. Castillo, P., Lozano, R., Dzul, A.E.: Modelling and control of mini-flying machines. Springer, London (2005). ch. 3

    Google Scholar 

  7. Hua, M.D., Hamel, T., Morin, P., Samson, C.: Introduction to feedback control of underactuated VTOL vehicles. IEEE Control. Syst. Mag., 61–75 (2013)

  8. Bristeau, P.J., Callou, F., Vissiere, D.: The Navigation and Control technology inside the AR.Drone micro UAV. Preprints of the 18th IFAC World Congress, pp. 1477–1484. Milano (2011)

  9. Salazar, S., Lozano, R., Escareño, J.: Stabilization and nonlinear control for a novel trirotor mini-aircraft. In: Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE international conference on robotics and automation, pp 2612–2617, Barcelona

  10. Escareño, J., Sanchez, A., Garcia, O., Lozano, R.: Triple tilting rotor mini-UAV: modeling and embedded control of the attitude. American Control Conference, Westin Seattle Hotel, Seattle (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Magdwick, S.O.H., Harrison, A.J.L., Vaidyanathan, R.: Estimation of IMU and MARG orientation using a gradient descent algorithm. IEEE International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, Switzerland (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Visioli, A.: Practical PID control. Springer (2006)

  13. Ang, K.H., Chong, G., Li, Y.: PID control system analysis, design, and technology. IEEE Trans. Control Syst. Technol. 13(4) (2005)

  14. Czyba, R.: Design of attitude control system for an UAV type-quadrotor based on dynamic contraction method, pp 644–649. IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, Singapore (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Wade, H.L.: Basic and advanced regulatory control: system design and application. ISA, USA (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Bouabdallah, S., Noth, A., Siegwart, R., PID vs, L Q: control techniques applied to an indoor micro quadrotor. In: Proceedings of international conference on intelligent robots and systems, Japan (2004)

  17. Ashokaraj, I., Tsourdos, A., Peter, M.G.S., White, B.A.: A robust approach to multiple sensor based navigation for an aerial robot. In: Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE/RSJ, International conference on intelligent robots and systems, pp 3533–3538, Beijing

  18. Hua, L.R., Rongqiang, L., Lei, Z.: Filtering algorithm research on MEMS gyroscope data. In: 2008 International conference on computer science and software engineering, pp 186–189, Wuhan

  19. Gary, W., Gary, B.: An introduction to the Kalman filter, July 24 (1006)

  20. Batista, P., Silvestre, C., Oliviera, P., Cardeira, B.: Low-cost attitude and heading reference system: filter design and experimental evaluation. In: 2010 IEEE international conference on robotics and automation, pp 2624–2629, USA (2010)

  21. Kubelka, V., Reinstein, M.: Complementary filtering approach to orientation estimation using inertial sensors only. In: 2012 IEEE international conference on robotics and automation, pp 599–605, USA (2012)

  22. Lee, J.K., Park, E.J., Robinovitch, S.N.: Estimation of attitude and external acceleration using inertial sensor measurement during various dynamic conditions. IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas. 61(8), 2262–2273 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Mahony, R., Hamel, T., Pflimlin, J.M.: Nonlinear complementary filters on the special orthogonal group. IEEE Trans. Autom. Control 5, 53 (2008)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  24. Tsend, S.P., Li, W.L., Sheng, C.Y., Hsu, J.W., Chen, C.S.: Motion and attitude estimation using inertial measurements with complementary filter. In: Proceedings of 2011 8th asian control conference, Taiwan (2011)

  25. Yoo, T.S., Hong, S.K., Yoon, H.M., Park, S.: Gain-scheduled complementary filter design for a MEMS based attitude and heading reference system. Sensors 11, 3816–3830 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Alzu’bi, H., Sababha, B., Alkhatib, B.: Model-based control of a fully autonomous quadrotor UAV. In: AIAA Infotech@Aerospace (I@A) Conference, Paper AIAA-2013-5136, USA (2013)

  27. Lin, F., Ang, K.Z.Y., Wang, F., Chen, B.M., Lee, T.H., Yang, B., Dong, M., Dong, X., Cui, J., Hang, S.K., Wang, B., Luo, D., Zhao, S., Yin, M., Li, K., Peng, K., Cai, G.: Development of an unmanned coaxial rotorcraft for the DARPA UAVForge Challenge. Unmanned Systems, vol.1, no. 2, World Scientific Publishing Company, pp. 211–245 (2013)

  28. Mohamed, M.K., Lanzon, A.: Design and control of novel Tri-rotor UAV, 304–309

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Silesian University of Technology, 16 Akademicka St., 44-100, Gliwice, Poland

    Roman Czyba, Grzegorz Szafrański & Andrzej Ryś

Authors
  1. Roman Czyba
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  2. Grzegorz Szafrański
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  3. Andrzej Ryś
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Roman Czyba.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Czyba, R., Szafrański, G. & Ryś, A. Design and Control of a Single Tilt Tri-Rotor Aerial Vehicle. J Intell Robot Syst 84, 53–66 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-016-0353-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-016-0353-0

Keywords