A quadrotor test bench for six degree of freedom flight

In this paper, a quadrotor test bench that can test and verify the 6 DOF flight controller is presented. The development of controller for aerial vehicle is usually a long and dangerous procedure. It needs series of tests from simulation to real flight. However, there are differences between simulation and real time flight due to the limit of the current simulation technique. The quadrotor test bench presented in the paper aims to fill the gap between simulation and real time flight. The test bench contains a quadrotor attached on the base through a sphere joint which let the quadrotor be able to rotate around 3 axes. A 6 axes force/torque sensor is used to simulate the position of the aerial vehicle. The paper presents the detailed system design and implementation of the test bench. Furthermore, the modeling and the parameter identification of the quadrotor on the test bench are described. A 6 DOF controller that consists of both guidance controller and attitude controller is designed using a nonlinear control technique named trajectory linearization control (TLC). Finally, the flight tests on the quadrotor test bench are demonstrated. The results indicate the feasibility and the value of the test bench.