Assessing multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle controllability in low altitude fine-scale wind fields

This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2019Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (page 79).This study presents a means of assessing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control in various environments using control margin. The metric gives an instantaneous measure of control authority and is defined by dividing required torque by maximum available torque. Required torque is the sum total of torque developed by a vehicle's rotors and residual terms representing the torque required to compensate for any remaining disturbances. The metric was demonstrated on a representative small quadrotor UAV in real world and laboratory environments. Utilizing only rotor revolutions per second and inertial measurement unit information, the metric indicates degraded control in conditions consistent with loss of control. This metric may ultimately be useful in understanding the low level wind environment, for certification of vehicles, or for real-time monitoring of control authority.by Alexander Hoekje List.M. Eng.M.Eng. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Scienc