Analysis and Control of a Non-linear Flight Vehicle

Unmanned flight vehicles have received considerable attention from researchers in multiple areas. They can be used as a research platform to evaluate new concepts in different fields including control theory, real-time system, robotics, and navigation. One of the most typical designs for unmanned flight vehicle is Quadcopter. Although quadcopters are mechanically simple, controlling them is a challenging task because the system is highly non-linear and unstable. In this thesis, the mathematical model of a basic quadcopter is presented. Full State Feedback control method and PID control method are proposed and applied to the quadcopter model. In order to verify the effectiveness of the designed controller, a simulation is also provided. The results show that both controllers can be both effective with a good set of initial parameters.