Design, Control, and Implementation of Small Quad-Rotor System Under Practical Limitation of Cost Effectiveness

This article presents the design, control, and implementation of a small quad-rotor system under the practical limitation of being cost effective for private use, such as in the cases of control education or hobbies involving radio-controlled systems. Several practical problems associated with implementing a small quad-rotor system had to be taken into account to satisfy this cost constraint. First, the size was reduced to attain better maneuverability. Second, the main control hardware was limited to an 8-bit processor such as an AVR to reduce cost. Third, the algorithms related to the control and sensing tasks were optimized to be within the computational capabilities of the available processor within one sampling time. A small quad-rotor system was ultimately implemented after satisfying all of the above practical limitations. Experimental studies were conducted to confirm the control performance and the operational abilities of the system.