Investigation and realisation of PID and LQR control methods in Parrot Mambo minidrone

A quadcopter is multivariate and unstable, highly nonlinear dynamic system, which requires a proper controller to ensure the stability and performance of the system. This study aims to investigate different types of control methods for Parrot Mambo minidrone. In this study, different control methods used on quadcopters such as proportional integral derivative (PID) and linear quadratic regulator (LQR) are investigated and implemented. First, the Parrot built-in PID controller is tested in simulation and experimentally validated using MATLAB and Simulink, followed by the design of the LQR controller. For both controllers, the operating point is selected such that the minidrone can hover along the vertical dimension. The design and tuning of the LQR is carried out by giving weight on the inertial coordinates and on the motor signals, which determine the performance of the minidrone with minimisation of quadratic cost function. The LQR controller shows that the system tends to have less overshoot in vertical trajectory. In many testing scenarios, the LQR controller shows better overall performance compared to PID controller in both simulation and experimental testing.