Battery State-Of-Charge Based Altitude Controller for Small, Low Cost Multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems

Volume

74

Issue

1-2

Publisher

Springer Verlag

Publication Date

10-2-2013

First Page

193

Last Page

207

Abstract

Small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are typically driven by Lithium polymer batteries. The batteries have their own dynamics, which changes during discharge. Classical approaches to altitude control assume a time-invariant system and therefore fail. Adaptive controllers require an identified system model which is often unavailable. Battery dynamics can be characterized and used for a battery model-based controller. This controller is useful in situations when no feedback from actuators (such as RPM or thrust) is available. After measuring the battery dynamics for two distinct types of batteries, a controller is designed and experimentally verified, showing a consistent performance during entire discharge test and a consequent flight verification.

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