Modeling and Control of a Novel Bi-Quadcopter with Auxiliary Thruster Mechanism

TL;DR

The paper addresses under-actuated control of a heavy-lift Bi-Quadcopter with auxiliary thrusters. It develops a Newton-Euler dynamic model and a force-decomposition control allocation using a full-row-rank matrix $A_{st}$ and Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse to distribute thrust across six actuators, paired with a quaternion-based cascaded attitude controller and nonlinear position law $F_{des} = -k_p p_e - k_d v_e + m g e_3 + m\dot v_d$. The authors analyze actuator-failure scenarios and demonstrate via simulations that control reallocation can maintain stability and trajectory tracking, highlighting reduced actuator load and redundancy benefits. These contributions advance tilting/UAV designs for heavy-lift and safe operation under actuator faults, with practical implications for indoor and confined-environment deployments.

Abstract

In this paper, a new under-actuated Bi-Quadcopter Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is introduced. The proposed drone configuration can be controlled similar to a Bicopter. The dynamics of the proposed Bi-Quadcopter is developed using the Newton-Euler approach. Using the force decomposition technique, a mapping between the control wrench and actuator inputs is developed. A nonlinear position control is applied for the Bi-Quadcopter using the quaternion-based cascaded attitude controller. The performance of the proposed UAV with the control algorithm is verified through simulations. Finally, the actuator failure scenarios were analyzed.

Figures (7)

• Figure 1: Schematic of Bi-Quadcopter drone.
• Figure 2: Bi-Quadcopter position control flow diagram.
• Figure 3: The desired and actual position trajectories through the simulations (isometric view).
• Figure 4: The desired and actual position trajectories from the top view ($X_iY_i$-plane).
• Figure 5: The desired and actual position and attitude trajectories and the required actuator inputs for proper tracking.