Minidrone Modeling and PID Control Using Matlab and Simulink

This work presents the study of implementing the Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller for the attitude control design of a UAV minidrone using Simulink/Matlab software. Therefore, a cascaded controller is constructed to implement the simulation model for palm-size lab Parrot Minidrone. This paper aims to familiarize the undergraduate students with efficiently designing and smoothly implementing the modeling and controlling aspects of minidrone in the lab. In this regard, a detailed description of the dynamic model of minidrone is presented. Then, the tracking control is designed by using the state feedback of altitude (z), roll (ϕ), pitch (θ), and yaw (ψ) measurements and their desired values. Moreover, a detailed discussion on how to tune the controller gain values is illustrated for the ease of students. The dynamic model of minidrone is realized by using a parrot minidrone toolkit in Matlab/Simulink. The performance of the proposed control strategy is demonstrated by using both simulation and experimental results on the commercial UAV minidrone that shows a good response to the presented flight control methodology.