Design of lateral Fuzzy-PI controller for unmanned quadrotor robot

Quadrotor UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) is a flying robotic platform which has drawn lots of attention in the recent years. The attraction comes from the fact that it is able to perform agile VTOL (Vertical Take-Off Landing) and hovering functions. In addition, the efficient modular structure composed of four electric rotors makes its design easier compared to other single-rotor type helicopters. In many cases, a quadrotor often utilizes vision systems in order to obtain altitude control and navigation solution in hostile environments where GPS receivers are not working or deniable. For carrying out their successful missions, it is essential for flight control systems to have fast and stable control responses of heading angle outputs. This paper presents a Fuzzy Logic based lateral PI controller to stabilize and control the quadrotor vehicle equipped with vision systems. The advantage of using the fuzzy based PI controller lies in the fact that it could acquire a desired output response of a heading angle even in presence of disturbances and uncertainties. The performance comparison of the newly proposed Fuzzy-PI controller and the conventional PI controller was carried out with various simulation results.