Feedforward neural network emulation of a PID continuous-time controller for quadcopter attitude digital control

Abstract

Quadcopters are popular UAVs owing to their compact size and maneuverability. Quadcopters are unmanned aircraft guided by remote control, and the demand for them is increasing due to their widespread surveillance, goods delivery, aerial photography, and defense applications. Nonlinear quadcopter operation makes control system implementation very challenging. In this paper, based on artificial intelligence (AI), we train a feedforward neural network (FFNN) controller of a traditional proportional integral derivative (PID). The conventional (PID) is generally tuned to improve the quadcopter control and performance. FFNN can perform offline learning between the inputs and outputs of the controller to learn its behavior. Once the learning is complete, we replace the PID controller with the neural network controller, to get a controller that can maintain system stabil-ity, and overcome the limitations of hardware implementation problems caused by the classical PID controller.