1

Development of the model and hierarchy

controller of the quad-copter
Y Zhang1*, K Kondak2, T Lu1, J Du1, M Bernard2, and G Wang1
1
School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, Peoples Republic of China
2
Institute of Computer Engineering and Microelectronics, Techniches Universitat Berlin, Berlin, Germany

The manuscript was received on 5 September 2007 and was accepted after revision for publication on 12 October 2007.

DOI: 10.1243/09544100JAERO285

Abstract: The work is a contribution to stable attitudes controlling and accurate position track-
ing of the small scale quad-copter. Based on the rigid body theory, the kinematics and dynamics
of the quad-copter are derived. The flying quad-copter has four input control voltages and three
attitude angles and three translation movements, which can be treated as an under-actuated
system. With some states controlling the other states, the under-actuated system can be fully
controlled. The hierarchical synthesis control algorithm is designed to fulfil this function. The
compensated proportional derivative (PD) control algorithm and the invert dynamics algorithm
are used as the kernel of the controller in this hierarchy control structure. The simulation and
experiment show that the control method can control the quad-copter stably. In contrast with
hierarchical uncompensated PD controller, the accuracy of the experiment results with the
compensated controller has greatly been improved.

Keywords: quad-copter, hierarchical compensated proportional derivative controller, under-

actuated system, tracking control

1 INTRODUCTION studied widely, yet its characters of complex

With the development of science and technology,
unmanned small-scale copters have been expected
by many fields such as agricultural spraying, atmos-
pheric monitoring, surveillance, and target acqui-
sition [1]. For these missions, an autonomous flight
control of the copter is indispensable. This auton-
omous flight control system requires many technol-
ogies such as obstacle avoiding as well as attitude
and position controlling. The study related to copters
controls and usages are now very popular all over the
world.
There are many different types of small copters,
such as traditional helicopter, the twin-rotor or
tandem-rotor helicopter, the coaxial rotor helicopter
and four-rotor helicopters. Although the traditional
helicopter, single main rotor and one tail rotor
small-scale helicopter, is popular and has been
*Corresponding author: School of Mechanical Engineering, Shang-
hai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200240, Peoples Republic of
China. email: zyo.zhang@gmail.com; yaou_zhang@sjtu.edu.cn
dynamics and structure, high price and hard to con-
trol, instability and easily to crush make it difficult
to use by common users. The quad-copter shares all
the merits of the traditional helicopters, such as
taking-off and landing vertically, moreover, it has
four fixed-pitch rotors mounted at the four ends of
a simple cross frame. Owing to the symmetry, this
vehicle is dynamically elegant, inexpensive, and
simple to design. It is an omni-directional vehicle,
and has almost no constraints on its motion. It can
be flown in tight spaces and does not require large
safety distances to operate. These characteristics
make the quad-copter a good candidate to be utilized
in the real life.
There are many research groups, studying the
model and control of quad-copters. There are two
methods in modelling the quad-copter, one is based
on the first principle [2 5], the other is built on the
LaGrange method [6, 7]. These two models all treat
the quad-copter as a rigid body with force and tor-
ques acted on. Based on these two models, many
different kinds of attitude and trajectory tracking

JAERO285 # IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part G: J. Aerospace Engineering
2 Y Zhang, K Kondak, T Lu, J Du, M Bernard, and G Wang
controller have been designed. In reference [7], the
proportional integral derivative (PID) controller and
linear quadratic (LQ) controller were implemented
and proved capable of regulating the system, but
these designs relied on the linearized version of the
vehicle model. In reference [8], it decoupled the
system into sets of double integrators. The control
structure was divided into four inner loops, two pos-
ition loops. An integral sliding mode control was used
to handle the altitude. The position control was using
integral LQR control, with states added for the lag in
the inner loop resulting in an eight state model. How-
ever, this modelling and simplifying methods lost
much information of the quad-copters. In references
[7] and [9], the proportional derivative derivative
(PDD) and proportional derivative (PD) controller
had been used in the quad-copter control, and the
experiment showed that these two controllers could
keep the asymptotic stability of the system. In refer-
ence [3] the elaborate model had been derived, a lot
of control methods had been used in attitude and
trajectory tracking controller design. This group was
trying to improve the accuracy of the tracking trajec-
tory and the usage of the quad-copters in reality. In
reference [10], neural network controller of the quad-
copter had been designed; the current paper devel-
oped a neural network and trained it with the teacher
data collected, and then put this controller in the
microcontroller on the quad-copter, however, this
controller cannot interpolate accurately beyond the
regions for which it has no trained.
Based on the research foundation in references [4]
and [9], the current paper is trying to use a kind of
compensated PD hierarchy control method in
designing controller of the quad-copters based on
the model derived to improve the accuracy of the
tracking trajectory predefined, and this method has
not been referred to in the copters controller design
in document. The flying quad-copter has four input
control voltages and three attitude angles and three
translation movements, which can be treated as an
under-actuated system. With some states controlling
the other states, the under-actuated system can be
fully controlled. The current paper designs hierarchi-
cal synthesis control algorithm to fulfil this function.
The compensated PD control algorithm is used as the
kernel of the controller in this hierarchy control struc-
ture. The simulation and experiment show that this
control method can control the quad-copter stably.
This paper is arranged as follows. Section 2 describes
the principle and structure of the quad-copter. A
detail description of kinematics and dynamics of
the quad-copter is provided in section 3. And the
relationship between lift force of the single rotor
and the input control signal is given in section 4. In
section 5, the kernel of the system controller, com-
pensate PD controller, is derived and the hierarchy
Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part G: J. Aerospace Engineering
controller with kernel of the compensated PD con-
troller, and inverted controller is designed. In section
6, the hierarchy compensated PD and inverted con-
troller is tested by simulation with Matlab simulink.
And the experiment tracking results of the quad-
copter controlled by hierarchy compensated PD con-
troller are compared with that controlled by hierar-
chy uncompensated PD controller. Finally, the
conclusion is drawn.
2 QUAD-COPTER
Different from the classical helicopter, which uses a
single main-rotor to lift the helicopter and one auxili-
ary tail-rotor to adjust the helicopters attitude, the
quad-copter is a special flying helicopter, which is
composed of four rotors to lift the copter and adjust
its attitude (Fig. 1). The four rotors are all with fixed
collective angles. The thrust force of each rotor is
changed along with the input control signals. The
diagonal motors are running in the same direction
(anti-clockwise); whereas the other diagonal motors
run in the clockwise direction to eliminate the anti-
torque, gyroscopic effects, and aerodynamic torques
tend to cancel [11].
When the rotor speeds vary with the same quantity,
the lift forces change, in the case, the altitude of
system will change and enable take-off or landing.
The forward and backward, the left and right, and
the yaw motions are achieved through a differential
control strategy of the thrust force generated by
each motor. The rotation directions of all these four
rotors will not be changed in the system.
When the angle velocities of these two sets are the
same in the magnitude but rotate in the opposite
direction, the copter can fulfil the movement of
hover. In order to change the roll angle of the vehicle
(its rotation about the forward-back axis), the thrust
on left motor can be raised and thrust on the right
motor can be decreased, without affecting the bal-
ance of torques being applied to the vehicle. The
same can be done to change the pitch of the vehicle
Fig. 1 The real quad-copter
JAERO285 # IMechE 2008
 Model and hierarchy controller of the quad-copter
Fig. 2 The theory of quad-copter
using the front and back motors. To cause a change in
the yaw angle (direction the front motor is pointing),
front and back motor thrusts are increased while left
and right thrusts are decreased, meanwhile, main-
taining the same total thrust and moments. The
theory of the quad-copter is shown in Fig. 2. The
change of the attitude of the quad-copter will
change the translation acceleration and velocity in
three directions and then make the copter track the
trajectory which is predefined. Then the attitude
and trajectory control of the quad-copter can be
realized.
3 KINEMATICS AND DYNAMICS
According to the description in section 2, the attitude
of the quad-copter is mainly controlled by the thrust
forces exerted by the four rotors. When the quad-
copter flies in the sky, it should be treated as a
six-degree-of-freedom object. To change the move-
ment of the object in the space, there should be
three forces and three torques acted upon it. How-
ever, in reality, each rotor in the quad-copter
system produces an aerodynamic torque Qi, (i 1,
2, 3, 4) and the thrust Di (i 1, 2, 3, 4), both parallel
to the rotors axis of rotation and both used for
vehicle control. For the rotors in diagonals rotate in
the opposite direction as rotors in the other diag-
onals, the torques can be counteracted. The real
forces exerted on the quad-copter are the four
thrust forces which are perpendicular to the rotation
plane. The torques acted on the quad-copter result in
the four forces on the axis of the translation velocity.
With these four forces and their torques, the system
of the quad-copter dynamics and kinematics can be
established. Thus the quad-copter can be looked on
as a rigid body which there is one force and three
torques acted upon when building the model. The
four electric motors dynamics is relatively fast and
therefore it will be neglected as well as the flexibility
of the blades.
When deriving the kinematics and dynamics of the
quad-copter, two frames are built: one is the inertial
JAERO285 # IMechE 2008
3
Fig. 3 The frame of the quad-rotor
frame N fn1, n2, n3g, which is placed on the
ground where the quad-copter origin situated; the
other fuselage frame F f f1, f2, f3g is fixed on
centre mass of the fuselage (Fig. 3), and the full
non-linear dynamics of the rigid body can be
described as equation (1) in common based on
the Newton second theory and angular momentum
principle
mr F

I v_ B vB
I vB M
1
I is the angular moment of the system, M is the sum of
all moments and all torques acting on the rigid body,
vB is angular velocity of the rigid body in inertial
frame, F is the sum of the force acting on the rigid
body, r is the position vector from the inertial origin
to the centre of the gravity (CG) in the vehicle, and
m is the mass of the system.
The kinematics and dynamics of the quad-copter
model developed here assumes the following:
(a) the structure is supposed to be rigid;
(b) the structure is supposed to be symmetrical;
(c) the motors and rotors is supposed to be rigid;
(d) the centre of gravity of the quad-copter and the
original of the body frame is in the same point.
3.1 Translation kinematics and dynamics
The position vector from the inertial origin to the CG
is defined as q, and can be described in the inertial
frame as equation (2). q1,2,3 are the coordinates of
the CG in N
q q1 n1 q2 n2 q3 n3 2
The translation linear velocity of CG is described as
u N in the inertial frame N
uN u1 n1 u2 n2 u3 n3 3
Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part G: J. Aerospace Engineering
4 Y Zhang, K Kondak, T Lu, J Du, M Bernard, and G Wang

follows [12]
The force acted on the quad-copter will be decom- ! !
posed in F1,2,3 dA b 2 dA b3
vBA  b3 b1  b1 b2
dt dt
F
F1 f1 F2 f2 F3 f3 !
dA b1
F 1 F2 0  b2 b3 8
dt
F3 D1 D2 D3 D4
In the derivation of the vF2N, Let b1, b2, b3 to be the
4
frame axes in the fuselage frame F, n1, n2, n3 are the
frame axes in the inertial frame N.
Using equations (1), (2), and (4), the translation According to the theorem above, the derivation of
dynamics of CG in inertial frame N can be described by the Euler angle can be achieved in equation (9) as fol-
lows
0 1 0 1 0 1

u_ 1 F1 0 sinq6
@ u_ 2 Am C f n @ F2 A @ 0 A 5 _q4 u4 cosq6  u5
cosq5
u_ 3 F3 gm
q_ 5 u4 sinq6 u5 cosq6
q_ 6 u6 tanq5 u4 cosq6  u5 sinq6 
where Cf2n is the orientation matrix of the frame F rela-
tive to frame N and m is the mass of the whole system; g 9
denotes the acceleration due to gravity.
Thus, putting the Cf2n into equation (5), the The angular accelerations are determined by
equation (6) can be derived below equation (1). Expanding the second-order term
v
Iv, the angular equations become
1
u_ 1 F3 sinq5 I11 u_ 4 T1 I33  I22 u5 u6
m
1 I22 u_ 5 T2  I33  I11 u4 u6
u_ 2  F3 sinq4 cosq5 I33 u_ 6 T3  I22  I11 u4 u5
m
1 10
u_ 3 F3 cosq4 cosq5  g
m
6 In this equation, Iii, i 1, 2, 3 are the angular moment
with respect to axes fi, i 1, 2, 3; Ti, i 1, 2, 3 is the
sum of the moments along the axes of the fuselage
q4, q5, q6 are the Euler angles of the fuselage of the
fi, i 1, 2, 3.
quad-copter with respect to n1, n2, and n3 axes,
Thus, the translation kinematics and dynamics
respectively, and are referred to as roll, pitch, and
model and the rotation kinematics and dynamics
yaw angles.
model have been derived. With these models, the
controller can be designed in the section below.

3.2 Rotation kinematics and dynamics

The angular velocity of the fuselage can be described
in the fuselage frame as
vFN u4 f1 u5 f2 u6 f3
where the angular velocity of the fuselage in inertial
frame is vF2N, u4,5,6 is the angular velocity of fuselage
described in the fuselage frame F.
Theorem
The angular velocity vB2A of the frame B relative to A
can be calculated by means of basis vector of B as
4 ROTOR FORCE MODEL
Thrust force of the rotor is related to many aerody-
namic factors. Theoretical model of the lift force
7 has been seen in much literature, in which thrust
force is proportional to the square of its rotation
speed. Meanwhile, the collective angle of the rotor,
a variety of non-linear aerodynamic parameters,
and the density of atmosphere all have effects on
the lift force. However, these non-linear aerodynamic
parameters can only be got by wind tunnel tests,
which are very complex and require high cost. There-
fore, the current paper obtains the relationship
between the control voltages and lifts force directly

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 Model and hierarchy controller of the quad-copter 5

Table 1 The data of the force and input voltage signal, c1, c2, m are the variables related to the state
the systems.
Voltage (V) 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Force (kg) 0 0 0.208 0.477 0.840 1.305 1.878 2.557 Supposing the error between the desired state xd
and the real state x is e in equation (13)

from the experiment and achieves numerical e x  xd 13

relationship by data fitting method in Matlab.
For the collective angle of the rotor is fixed in the Let suppose the error function be equation (14)
quad-copter, this experiment deals with the relation- with the assumption a, b . 0
ship between the control voltage and lift force in the
fixed collective angle. During the experiment, adjust
the input control voltage signals from 0 to 3.5 V; the e ae_ b 0 14
velocity sensor is used to measure the speed of the
a, b are control parameters which are chosen by
rotor; lift force is got by the force sensor and dealt
simulation or real experiment.
with by the amplification and filter circuit before
When the system reaches the desired state, the
its sending to the data acquisition cards in the com-
second-order system will be
puter. Some of the experiment data are shown in
Table 1. Analyzing the data collected, it shows that
when the collective angle of the rotor is fixed at 128, x d c1 x_ d c2 xd mdd 15
the average proportion coefficient between the lift
force and the square of the voltage is c 0.208 74
when the input voltage is above 0.8 V. When the Subtracting equation (12) from equation (15)
input control voltages are below 0.8 V, the forces are yields
almost zero.
The relationship between control voltage and the x  x d c1 x_  x_ d c2 x  xd md  dd 16
lift force is described in equation (11), where the V
is control input voltage of the motor and P is the
thrust exerted by the rotor. According to equations (14) and (16), the control
signal of the system (12) d can be obtained
P cV 2 11
d ae_  be c1 e_ c2 e x d c1 x_ d c2 xd 17
Thus, based on kinematics equation and dynamics
model and the proportion coefficient between
the control voltage and lift force in the fixed collec- With this controller, the simple and accurate con-
tive angle, if lift force and torque system have been troller on the ordinary second-order system and
calculated, it is easily to get the control voltage one-order system can be designed.
directly. Based on the controller designed above, through
simulation and real-time experiment, selecting
proper control parameter, the DST can be tracked
very well. This control method can track the desired
state better than common uncompensated PD or
5 CONTROLLER DESIGN
PID controller. These PID and uncompensated PD
controller are very popular and useful in real fight
5.1 Kernel of the controller in helicopter control [13 16]. It is easier to choose
There are a lot of methods in designing the controller. the control parameter for this compensated PD con-
In order to stabilize the attitude and track the desired troller than other methods. Thus, it is better to choose
trajectory (DST) of the quad-copter, the hierarchy this compensated PD controller in designing the con-
control structure with compensate PD controller troller. The control structure is shown in Fig. 4.
and inverted controller is designed. The kernel con-
trol theory about the compensate PD controller is
deduced below.
Supposing a second-order system in equation (12)

x c1 x_ c2 x md 12

where x is the state of the system, d is the control Fig. 4 The structure of the kernel controller

JAERO285 # IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part G: J. Aerospace Engineering
6 Y Zhang, K Kondak, T Lu, J Du, M Bernard, and G Wang

Fig. 5 The hierarchy controller structure

5.2 Hierarchy control system rotation angle controller can be designed to achieve
the required angle velocity for the inner loop, and
The motion of the quad-copter considered is con- with the required angle velocity and the real-time
trolled by adjusting the orientation of the rotor and angle velocity, the required force, and torques on
the value of force F3. In the quad-copter, there are the quad-copter can be achieved.
four indirect control input F3, T1,2,3, there are six out-
puts: three translation positions and three angle atti- 5.2.1 Translation controller
tudes. Thus, this system can be treated as a kind of
under-actuated system. With some states controlling With equations (2), (3), and (6), the equation (18) can
the other states, the under-actuated system can be be expressed with the pseudo-control variables t1,2,3
fully controlled. The hierarchy control structure is
proposed to fulfil this function in Fig. 5. This control
q 1 t1
structure is constituted of three loops in cascade. The
inner loop controls the faster dynamics: velocity of q 2 t2
the Euler angle; the middle loop controls the attitude; q 3 t3
and the outer loop controls the slower dynamics: 18
lateral and longitudinal translation and altitude.
The control system to be designed for the quad-
1
copter has to meet objectives below. t1 F3 sinq5
m
1. Command variables to the outer loop are desired 1
t2  F3 sinq4 cosq5
position or trajectory and desired translation vel- m
ocity and desired translation acceleration and the 1
t3 F3 cosq4 cosq5  g
desired yaw angle. m
2. The bandwidth of the outer loop is to be maxi- 19
mized to enable the system to follow complex
trajectories.
3. Envelope protections should avoid stalls, spins, For the translation controller block, it is designed
and uncontrolled flight as well as overstressing based on the equation (18). This is similar with
the aircraft structure. the equation (12) in last section, except c1, c2 0,
4. To increase the level of autonomy, the system m 1. Based on the controller designed in 5.1, the
should be able to adapt to various failure situ- translation pseudo-control signals can be
ations without explicitly having to know the
nature of the failure. t1 a1 q_ 1  q_ 1d  b1 q1  q1d q 1d
The motion of the quad-copter is controlled by t2 a2 q_ 2  q_ 2d  b2 q2  q2d q 2d
adjusting the four inputs voltages of the rotors. In t3 a3 q_ 3  q_ 3d  b3 q3  q3d q 3d
Fig. 5, the inputs are the DST qid, i 1, 2, 3, 6, and 20
desired velocity uid, i 1, 2, 3, and desired accelera-
tion aid, i 1, 2, 3 of the quad-copter. The controller
of the translation controller in Fig. 5 is designed After choosing the suitable control parameters ai,
according to the theory in section 5.1. Then with bi, i 1, 2, 3, the required forces on these three direc-
the translation inverted dynamics model, the tions in the inertial frame axis ni, i 1, 2, 3 can be
required angle of q4d, q5d can be achieved. Then the achieved.

Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part G: J. Aerospace Engineering JAERO285 # IMechE 2008
 Model and hierarchy controller of the quad-copter 7

5.2.2 Inverted controller In equation (23), bi, i 4, 5, 6 are the control par-
ameters of the controller which can be adjusted in
With the equation (19), the translation inverted
the flight of the quad-copter, and qid, i 4, 5 are
dynamics can be easily calculated
the required angles calculated from the former loop,
q and q6d is the yaw angle of the body directly given
F3 m t21 t22 t3 g2 by the outmost loop. Based on equation (23), the
0 1 required angular velocities can be achieved.
B t1 C
q5 arc sin@qA
t21 t22 t3 g2 5.2.4 Rotation angular velocity controller


t2 In Fig. 5, with required angular velocity controller, the
q4 arc tg control torque can be calculated. It is a little difficult
t3 g
to design this controller, for there is the product such
21
as u4u5, u5u6 in equation (10). In the reality, for sym-
metry of the quad-copter in x, y-direction, so 2I11
With the desired translation trajectory and real- 2I22 I33 0.244 kg m2. The equation (10) can be
time trajectory (RT) and desired velocity and the real- changed into equation (24).
time velocity, and the desired acceleration, the
pseudo-control signals can be calculated by equation I11 u_ 4  I33  I22 u5 u6 T1
(20). With the translation inverted dynamics in
equation (21), the required forces generated by the I22 u_ 5 I33  I11 u4 u6 T2
four rotors and the required Euler angles (roll and I33 u_ 6 I22  I11 u4 u5 T3
pitch angle) of the fuselage can be easily obtained. 24
The required angles are put into next rotation angle
controller to calculate the angle velocity needed by Let assume
the body, and the required force is directly applied
to the quad-copter dynamics.
e1 u4  u4d
e2 u5  u5d
5.2.3 Rotation angle controller
e3 u6  u6d
Analysing equation (9), the similar control theory in 25
section 5.1 can also be implemented here. It is similar
to the equation (12), only the coefficient of The control theory in section 5.1 can also be used
second-order derivative x, is zero. In equation (9), here. With equations (24) and (25) and the control
u4, u5, u6 will be treated as the control signals of qi, theory in equation (17), the required control torques
i 4, 5, 6. of the quad-copter can be calculated below in
From equation (9), inverted equation can be equation (26)
achieved in equation (22)
2 3 2 32 3 T1 I11 a4 e1  e3 e2  u6d e2  u5d e3 u_ 4d  u6d u5d
u4 cosq6 cosq5 sinq6 0 q_ 4
6 7 6 76 _ 7 T2 I22 a5 e5 u6d e1 e1 e3 u4d e3 u_ 5d u6d u4d
4 u5 5 4  sinq6 cosq5 cosq6 0 54 q5 5
T3 I33 a6 e3 u_ 6d
u6 sinq5 0 1 q_ 6
26
22
Selecting suitable control parameter ai, i 4, 5, 6
Thus, from equation (17), the requested u4, u5, u6
the requested control torques can be decided. When
should be
assuming the desired position or trajectory, with the
controller prescribed above in section 5, the required
u4 cosq6d cosq5d b4 q4  q4d q_ 4d force and torques (by equations (21) and (26)), can be
sinq6d b5 q5  q5d q_ 5d
u5 sinq6d cosq5d b4 q4  q4d q_ 4d
cosq6d b5 q5  q5d q_ 5d Table 2 The control parameters of the simulation

u6 sinq5d b4 q4  q4d q_ 4d Control parameter a1 b1 a2 b2 a3 b3

Value 1 3 1 3 1.5 3
b6 q6  q6d q_ 6d Control parameter b4 b5 b6 a4 a5 a6
23 Value 2.5 2.5 4 4 4 8

JAERO285 # IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part G: J. Aerospace Engineering
8 Y Zhang, K Kondak, T Lu, J Du, M Bernard, and G Wang

Fig. 6 The translation position and yaw angle response process: (a) q1 response process, (b) q2
response process, (c) q3 response process, and (d) q6 response process

Fig. 7 Control force and torques changes during the simulation: (a) T1 change process, (b) T2
change process, (c) T3 change process, and (d) F3 change process

Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part G: J. Aerospace Engineering JAERO285 # IMechE 2008
 Model and hierarchy controller of the quad-copter 9

achieved to make the quad-copter reach or track the
desired position or trajectory. With the relationship
between the control voltage and the force exerted
by the rotor in section 4, the control voltage for
these four motor can be decided, this step can refer
to paper [4].
6 SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENT
6.1 Simulation
The hierarchy controller of the quad-copter, which is
designed in Fig. 5, using the compensated PD method
as the kernel of the controller, is tested by the simu-
link in Matlab. The controller parameters are shown

Fig. 8 The comparison of the control results between hierarchy uncompensated PD controller
and hierarchy compensated PD controller: (a) q1 tracking process with hierarchy
uncompensated controller, (b) q1 tracking process with hierarchy compensated
controller, (c) q2 tracking process with hierarchy uncompensated controller, (d) q2
tracking process with hierarchy compensated controller, (e) q3 tracking process with
hierarchy uncompensated controller, (f) q3 tracking process with hierarchy
compensated controller, (g) q6 tracking process with hierarchy uncompensated
controller, and (h) q6 tracking process with hierarchy compensated controller

JAERO285 # IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part G: J. Aerospace Engineering
10 Y Zhang, K Kondak, T Lu, J Du, M Bernard, and G Wang
in Table 2. With this controller, the quad-copter can
track its DST very well. In the simulation process,
the desired translation position in x-direction is
19 m; and it is 20 m in y-direction; and it is 40 m in
z-direction; the desired yaw angle of the quad-copter
is 1 rad. For reason of observability the reference tra-
jectory proposed here is chosen in a manner to avoid
initial condition problem, the DST is filtered with
filter (0.2/s 0.2) to make it smooth in curve and
zero initial conditions before entering into the
system as the desired position. The simulation results
are represented in Figs 6(a) to (d), that the desired
point can be reached very quickly. And when at the
end the quad-copter reaches its desired place, it
remains hovering, and the torques in x, y, and z direc-
tion should be zero, which are plotted in Figs 7(a)
to (c). At this time the force generated by the quad-
copter equals to the weight of the system, which is
shown in Fig. 7(d). These results are correct by
theory analysis. These accurately tracking characters
and the forces and torques changing process during
the flight of the quad-copter validate that this
method can be used in the quad-copter controller
designing and can make the quad-copter to have a
stable control and good tracking character.
6.2 Experiment
In section 6.1, the controller of the quad-copter can
make it reach its desired position very fast and accu-
rately in simulation, but the control parameters are
given directly. In this section, the controller designed
is used in the real flight of the quad-copter in the
experiment, but the controller parameters are
adjusted through the experiment, shown in Table 3.
There are two kinds of controllers used in the exper-
iment for comparison, the first one is to use the
uncompensated PD controller as the kernel of the
hierarchy controller, which is the common method
used by many research groups in controlling the heli-
copter [9], and the second one is to use the compen-
sated PD controller as the kernel of the control
system. In the first experiment using uncompensated
PD hierarchy controller, the quad-copter flies a little
unstably and the errors between the DST and the
real-flight trajectory are very large. The tracking
results can be seen from Figs 8(a), (c), (e), and (g). It
can be seen that although the inclination of the RT
is the same as the DST, there are a large errors in
between, which can be easily found in these figures.
Table 3 The control parameters of the experiment
Control parameter a1 b1 a2 b2 a3
Value 2.5 3 2.5 3 4.8
Control parameter b4 b5 b6 a4 a5
Value 2 2 4 3 3 10
Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part G: J. Aerospace Engineering
Fig. 9 The experiment scene
In these figures, the solid line represents the DST
and the dot line represents the measured trajectory
(RT) by the sensors. On the contrary, in the second
experiment when using the compensated PD hierar-
chy controller, the quad-copter flies very stably and
can track its DST better, but it is still not as accurate
as the results achieved in the simulation, and it still
has some errors. These tracking results can be seen
from Fig 8(b), (d), (f), and (h). In these figures, the
solid lines represent the DST, while the dot lines rep-
resent the RT measured by the sensors.
From Figs 8(a) to (d), the errors between the DST
and the real trajectory of the quad-copter controlled
by the compensated PD controller are smaller
(Figs 8(b) and (d)) than that controlled by uncompen-
sated PD controller (Figs 8(a) and (c)). For there are
not strong couple in the height control and yaw con-
trol, the errors between the DST and the real
trajectory with these two controllers are not very
big. However, the static errors controlled by compen-
sated PD controller are still a little smaller than that
only controlled by PD controller, shown in Figs 8(e)
to (h).
During the experiment, because the states of the
quad-copter measured by the sensors inertial
measurement unit (IMU) are not as accurate as that
used in the simulation; some filters are added in the
system, thus these states are still not as good as that
in simulation in Matlab. This is one reason that
there are some tracking errors between the real tra-
jectory and DST when the quad-copter is controlled
by compensated controller. On the other hand, for
the controller needs the derivation, in the real flying
experiment, these derivations are also not as good
as used in simulation. The approximate derivations
are used here in the controller. Furthermore, to
b3 avoid the sharp change in the derivation of the
3.2 states, such as the velocity and acceleration, only 80
a6 per cent of the compensated control signals are
added in the PD controller. These are the reasons
JAERO285 # IMechE 2008
 Model and hierarchy controller of the quad-copter
why the error of the trajectory in experiment is bigger
than that in the simulation.
The experiment, shown in Fig. 9, shows that this
hierarchy compensated PD and inverted dynamics
controller not only can be used in the flight of the
quad-copter to make it stably fly, but also can improve
the accuracy of the trajectory track of the system.
7 CONCLUSION
The model and control of the quad-copter are pre-
sented in the current paper. The rigid body with
forces and torques acted on are used in deriving the
model of the quad-copter. The flying quad-copter
has four input control voltages and three attitude
angles and three translation movements, which can
be treated as an under-actuated system. With some
states controlling the other states, the under-actuated
system can be fully controlled. The current paper
designed hierarchical synthesis control algorithm to
fulfil this function. The compensated PD control
algorithm and the invert dynamics are used as the
kernel of the controller in this hierarchy control struc-
ture. The simulation and experiment show that the
control method can control the quad-copter stably.
The relationship between the force of the single
rotor and the control voltage is received through
experiment. And it is used to derive the real control
voltage from the force need to get the real control
signals.
In controller designing process, the compensated
PD controller is designed, and the simulation in
Matlab is very good. In real experiment, this hierarchy
compensated PD controller can control the quad-
copter better than the hierarchy uncompensated PD
controller. For the states measured by sensors is not
as accurate as the states in simulation, the control
results of the system are not as good as that achieved
in simulation.
To reduce the static errors, the hierarchical com-
pensated PID controller will be used in the exper-
iment, with the integrated controller and
compensated PD controller, the result may be
better. It is the work which is being done.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank National Natural
Science Foundation of China (NSFC), China Scholar-
ship Council (CSC), and Deutscher Akademischer
Austausch Dienst (DAAD) for their funds support,
Professor Gunter Hommel and his helicopter
research group in the Technische Universitat Berlin
for their help in the process of controller designing
and the experiment fulfilling.
JAERO285 # IMechE 2008
11
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APPENDIX gravity of the fuselage
qi, i 1, 2, 3 coordinate of the vector q
Notation qi, i 4, 5, 6 Euler angle of the fuselage
qid, i 1, 2, 3, 6 DST
a control parameter q4d, q5d required angle
ai, i 1, 2, 3, 4, parameters of the controller Qi, i 1, 2, 3, 4 aerodynamic torque
5, 6 r position vector
aid,i 1, 2, 3 desired acceleration Ti i 1, 2, 3 sum of the moments along the
b control parameter fuselage frame axis
bi, i 1, 2, 3, 4, parameters of the controller u velocity of the CG of the body
5, 6 ui i 1, 2, 3 coordinate of the vector u
c lift force coefficient uid, i 1, 2, 3 desired velocity
Cf2n orientation matrix of the frame u4,5,6 angular velocity of fuselage
F to N V control input voltage
Di, i 1, 2, 3, 4 thrust of the propeller x state of the system
ei, i 1, 2, 3 error between the real time xd desired state of the system
angular velocity and the
required one d control signal
fi, i 1, 2, 3 coordinate axis of the fuselage dd desired control signal
frame F ti, i 1, 2, 3 pseudo control variables
F fuselage frame vB angular velocity of the rigid body
F force acted on the body vF2N angular velocity of the fuselage
Fi, i 1, 2, 3 force along the axis of fi in inertial frame
I angular moment

Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part G: J. Aerospace Engineering JAERO285 # IMechE 2008