Design of an Aquatic Quadcopter with Optical Wireless Communications

With a focus on dynamics and control, an aquatic quadcopter with optical wireless communications is modeled, designed, constructed, and tested. Optical transmitter and receiver circuitry is designed and discussed. By utilization of the small angle assumption, the nonlinear dynamics of quadcopter movement are linearized around an equilibrium state of zero motion. The set of equations are then tentatively employed beyond limit of the small angle assumption, as this work represents an initial explorative study. Specific constraints are enforced on the thrust output of all four rotors to reduce the multiple-input multiple-output quadcopter dynamics to a set of single-input single-output systems. Root locus and step response plots are used to analyze the roll and pitch rotations of the quadcopter. Ultimately a proportional integral derivative based control system is designed to control the pitch and roll. The vehicle’s yaw rate is similarly studied to develop a proportional controller. The prototype is then implemented via an I2C network of Arduino microcontrollers and supporting hardware.