Motion Control of a Terrain Following Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Under Uncertainty

Abstract

This paper presents a method of building a smooth trajectory for a quadrotor equipped with a single-beam LiDAR to closely follow terrain undulations underneath. The LiDAR is attached at the bottom of the quadrotor and can be set at different angles. This can be an important feature for a quadrotor used in a large variety of applications including surveillance, mapping, infrastructure monitoring, search and rescue. Through simulation, this work demonstrates how a low-cost solution can be effective for controlling flight altitude in real-time. Simulation results show how changing the laser angle and size of the filtering window impact planning of a proper trajectory for the quadrotor.