Experimental Validation of an Attitude Controller for a Quadcopter by Means of a Test Bench

This paper presents different parametrizations to describe the orientation of rigid bodies. In particular, we focus on the exponential coordinates of rotation. In this regard, a control law based on this three-parameter parametrization is proposed to stabilize the rigid body's attitude. The main objective of this study is to assess the performance of the orientation controller experimentally. In that sense, a test bench for small quadcopters and satellites was design, which its structure also works as an educational tool. The mechanism allows to perform full 360-degree rotations around the three axes, and provides precise angle measurements. In order to assess the test bench, a custom quadcopter was designed and implemented from scratch.