Onboard Flight Control of a Small Quadrotor Using Single Strapdown Optical Flow Sensor

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates onboard hover control of a tiny quadrotor using a single-chip optical flow sensor, enabling autonomous flight without external sensors or ground communication, suitable for payload-constrained applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel onboard control method for small quadrotors using a low-power optical flow sensor on an 8-bit microprocessor, eliminating the need for external sensors.

Findings

Successful hover control demonstrated in flight tests

High accuracy validated against ground-truth data

System operates without external sensors or ground communication

Abstract

This paper considers onboard control of a small-sized quadrotor using a strapdown embedded optical flow sensor which is conventionally used for desktop mice. The vehicle considered in this paper can carry only few dozen grams of payload, therefore conventional camera-based optical flow methods are not applicable. We present hovering control of the small-sized quadrotor using a single-chip optical flow sensor, implemented on an 8-bit microprocessor without external sensors or communication with a ground control station. Detailed description of all the system components is provided along with evaluation of the accuracy. Experimental results from flight tests are validated with the ground-truth data provided by a high-accuracy reference system.