Quadrotor Precision Landing on Inclined Surfaces Using Adaptive Leg Design with Robust PID and Fractional PID Control

This work introduces a new system with adaptive landing legs to improve the versatility of quadrotor aerial platforms, facilitating safe take-off and landing on sloping surfaces. The design has a lightweight, symmetric leg construction powered by a single servomotor, reducing weight and streamlining wiring, while ensuring stability and balance in flight. To achieve accurate landings on slopes, essential data—including distance, slope orientation, and surface angle—is collected by a multi-zone Time-of-Flight sensor, which demonstrates resilience to visual distortions and fluctuating lighting conditions, surpassing conventional imaging techniques. Landing manoeuvre control is refined using MATLAB simulations, whereby we implement and compare proportional-integral-derivative (PID) and fractional-order PID controllers, emphasising the superior stability and precision of our control methodology. This design markedly enhances the manoeuvrability of quadrotors in difficult terrains.