Autonomous Control of a Quadrotor UAV using Fuzzy Logic

UAV’s are being increasingly used today than ever before in both military and civil applications. A certain level of autonomy is imperative to the future of UAV’s. A quadrotor is a helicopter with four rotors, that make it more stable; but more complex to model and control. Characteristics that provide a clear advantage over other fixed wing UAV’s are VTOL and hovering capabilities as well as a greater maneuverability. Fuzzy logic control offers several advantages over certain types of conventional control, especially when dealing with highly nonlinear systems and modeling uncertainties. The objective of this research endeavor is to present the steps of designing, building and simulating an intelligent flight control module for a quadrotor UAV. The responses are analyzed and future work involving hardware-in-the-loop simulations is proposed.