Design of a high performance quad-rotor robot based on a layered real-time system architecture

Abstract

This work presents the results of an effort to create a high performance quad-rotor MAV named iQCopter for research in the field of swarm robotics and vision-based autonomous operation. During the design, navigational and computational capabilities have been of major priority. A distinctive feature of the iQCopter is its layered system architecture using a comparably powerful, hard real-time capable x86-computer even in the innermost control loop for maximum transparency and ease of use while a simple fixed-point microcontroller provides a low-level sensor interface and a fallback solution for safety reasons. Finally, a successful system identification and subsequent design of an aggressive H ∞ controller are presented as benchmark cases to demonstrate the performance of the design. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.