Real-time flight testing for developing an autonomous indoor navigation system for a multi-rotor flying vehicle

A multi-rotor vehicle is an unmanned vehicle consisting of multiple rotors. A multi-rotor vehicle can be categorized as tri-, quad-, hexa-, and octo-rotor depending on the number of the rotors. Multi-rotor vehicles have many advantages due to their agile flight capabilities such as the ability for vertical take-off, landing and hovering. Thus, they can be widely used for various applications including surveillance and monitoring in urban areas. Since multi-rotors are subject to uncertain environments and disturbances, it is required to implement robust attitude stabilization and flight control techniques to compensate for this uncertainty. In this research, an advanced nonlinear control algorithm, i.e. sliding mode control, was implemented. Flight experiments were carried out using an onboard flight control computer and various real-time autonomous attitude adjustments. The feasibility and robustness for flying in uncertain environments were also verified through real-time tests based on disturbances to the multi-rotor vehicle.