Sakaguchi, Akinori (Osaka University), Takimoto, Takashi (National Institute of Technology, Kitakyushu College), Ushio, Toshimitsu (Osaka Univ.)

A Novel Quadcopter with A Tilting Frame using Parallel Link Mechanism

Scheduled for presentation during the Regular Session "Micro- and Mini- UAS" (ThA3), Thursday, June 13, 2019, 10:00−10:20, Heritage A

2020 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), June 11-14, 2019, Athens, Greece

This information is tentative and subject to change. Compiled on April 24, 2024

Abstract

This paper is concerned with a novel quadcopter with a tilting capability using a parallel link mechanism. The proposed quadcopter consists of the tilting frame and a main body, and an angle between them is called a tilt angle. A ratio of the current width to the maximum one of the quadcopter is called a folding ratio. Using only one servo motor, it can tilt in the pitch direction and be folded vertically within a user-specified ranges of the tilt angle and the folding ratio, respectively. We show a procedure of determining design parameters of the tilting frame to satisfy specifications given by the user. Due to the tilting mechanism of the frame, the proposed quadcopter is not well-controlled as the tilt angle approaches 90 or -90 degree. Therefore, we focus on a stabilization problem for the quadcopter at a desired tilt angle specified by a user around 90 or -90 degree and propose a novel reference tilt angle generator based on the pitch angle. In simulations, we show an effectiveness of the proposed strategy for the reference tilt angle by comparing it with a conventional PID controller under the existence of a disturbance.