Quadrotor helicopter with tilting rotors: Modeling and simulation

Abstract

Quadrotors have recently become a focus of research in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and flying robots applications. However, controlling the quadrotor dynamics is noticeably complex as the conventional quadrotor is underactuated. Some of the quadrotor motions are coupled with others which makes it impossible to achieve all the desired maneuvers. In this paper, a novel quadrotor design is proposed. The design increases the number of inputs from four in conventional quadrotors to twelve by allowing each rotor to tilt in two directions about its fixed frames. This addition aims to separate the quadrotor motions and give it more maneuverability and robustness. The model of the new design is introduced and several flights are simulated to show the superiority over conventional design.