Research on Modeling and Control of Multi-Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is a kind of vehicle controlled by radio remote control apparatuses or automatic control devices. Compared with manned aerial vehicles, UAVs can carry out more complex and dangerous tasks and have been widely applied in the various fields, such as fire fighting, rescue, circuit inspection, aerial photography, and so on. In addition, in the military field, UAVs can perform reconnaissance, strike, and transport tasks, and play an essential role in the national defense. The unmanned multi-rotor crafts like quadrotor UAV and tilt-rotor UAV, which are capable of taking off and landing vertically, can install various devices to complete different tasks. There are three methods to connect the unmanned rotorcraft with the payload: connecting the payload rigidly, grabbing the payload by robot arms, and connecting the payload by a soft cable. In contrast to the other two connection methods, connecting the payload by a soft cable possesses the following advantages: the shape and size of the payload do not need to match that of the UAVs, and the UAVs can load and unload without landing.