Visual Servo Control of a Micro Quad-copter as a Teaching Platform for Engineering

This paper presents a platform for controlling a micro quad-copter using a single visual sensor fixed to the ground. The aim is for this to be a teaching platform with academic and research applications, that combines dynamic real-time control with image segmentation and servoing. A mathematical model based on the Newton-Euler formulation is presented for the quad-copters dynamics. Three different image segmentation algorithms are presented and discussed. A simulator is implemented using MATLABs Simulink environment and a linear quadratic regulator with integral gain (LQR-I) controller is presented as means of controlling a linearized version of the system.

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