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Rotational Error Metrics for Quadrotor Control

PDF available from arXiv. This work was originally presented at the IROS 2020 workshop: Perception, Learning, and Control for Autonomous Agile Vehicles, where we co-won the Best Workshop Paper Award.

See Quadrotor Simulation for a sandbox where the simulation experiments described in the workshop paper and shown here can be run interactively.

Simultaneous Position and Yaw Step

Objective: Translate 3 meters and turn 180 degrees in yaw simultaneously. Step inputs are provided to the controller in position and yaw.

Continuous SO(3) - "Skew Symmetric" Control

Discontinuous SO(3) - "Quaternion" Control

Note the significant sideways deviation for both controllers that use full SO(3) control.

Reduced Attitude Control

Feedback Linearization

Reduced attitude control and feedback linearization follow much more linear paths to the goal position.

Diagonal Step

Objective: Translate diagonally 3 meters along both the X and Y axes. A step input in position is provided to the controller.

Continuous SO(3) - "Skew Symmetric" Control

Discontinuous SO(3) - "Quaternion" Control

Note the significant deviation away from the straight-line diagonal path for both controllers that use full SO(3) control.

Reduced Attitude Control

Feedback Linearization

Reduced attitude control and feedback linearization again follow much more linear paths to the goal position.

More coming soon!