Norafizah Abas

Modeling and System Identification using Extended Kalman Filter for a Quadrotor System

Quadrotor has emerged as a popular testbed for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) research due to its simplicity in construction and maintenance, and its vertical take-off, landing and hovering capabilities. It is a flying rotorcraft that has four lift-generating propellers; two of the propellers rotate clockwise and the other two rotate counter-clockwise. This paper presents modeling and system identification for auto-stabilization of a quadrotor system through the implementation of Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). EKF has known to be typical estimation technique used to estimate the state vectors and parameters of nonlinear dynamical systems. In this paper, two main processes are highlighted; dynamic modeling of the quadrotor and the implementation of EKF algorithms. The aim is to obtain a more accurate dynamic modelby identify and estimate the needed parameters for thequadrotor. The obtained results demonstrate the performances of EKF based on the flight test applied to the quadrotor system.

Altitude controller design for multi-copter UAV

This paper discusses on attitude control of a quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in real time application. The paper describes the controller design method for the hovering control of UAV automatic vertical take-off system. In order to take-off the quadcopter and stable the altitude, PID controller has been designed. The scope of study is to develop an altitude controller of the vertical take-off as realistic as possible. The quadcopter flight system has nonlinear characteristics. A simulation is conducted to test and analyze the control performance of the quadcopter model. The simulation was conducted by using Mat-lab Simulink. On the other hand, for the real time application, the PCI-1711 data acquisition card is used as an interface for controller design which routes from Simulink to hardware. This study showed the controller designs are implemented and tuned to the real system using Real Time Windows Target approach by Mat-Lab Simulink.

Performance analysis of wireless warning device for upper body level of deaf-blind person

For blind people, it is generally very hard if not impossible to notice the obstacles which exist around them except by touching the objects and by hearing the information from around them. Especially the obstruction which is existed at upper level of body. The issue becomes more severe when a blind person also has multiple sensory problems such as impaired hearing. Conventionally, they rely on white canes or guide dogs to assist them in order to reach their desired destination safely. However, the conventional method is beneficial only if the obstructions are existed at below level of body. They could not sense and hear the surrounding and cannot recognize their locations. It is very hard for them to travel independently from one destination to another without the proper navigation tools. In this paper, the performance analyses of a wireless vibration warning device in order to sense the obstructions at upper level of body for deaf-blind people is described. Four pieces of vibrator are used in order to give warning signals when obstacles are detected by ultrasonic sensors which are mounted to detect the obstacle at four directions such as front, down, left and right. From the experiment which is conducted, the configuration of the vibrators in order to warn the user when the obstacles are detected is confirmed. The location and the response of the user are acquired from the experiment which has been done. By using the developed wireless vibration warning device, the upper body level obstacles can be detected without touching the object and the effective wireless vibration warning device functions successfully.

Design and development of RH-2000 Robotic Hand

A robotic device that resembles and characteristics of a human hand is called robotic hand or prosthesis hand. This paper presents a design and development of RH-2000 Robotic Hand. In this research, ten Degree of Freedom (DOF) with 5 linear motors attached to mechanical linkages is proposed. RH-2000 is designed using SolidWorks that resembles the function and size of an actual human hand. The design and development processes includes background works, proposed architecture, fabrication and lastly finished prototype. This paper only mentioned about design and development only as for controlling purpose will be mentioned in future works.

Comparative study for bitumen containment strategy using different radar types for level detection

This paper analyzes the radar performance of a bitumen liquid level detection. In previous installation, radar A and B has successfully found its place to detect bitumen liquid level in tank storage. The problems occur when these two types of radar continuously give the frequent peak error in liquid level measurement output readings. With an advanced technology this research proposes of using radar C. By focusing at the frequency of error occurrence as each radar performance is continuously monitored in 8 weeks, radar A gives 55, radar B gives 19 while radar C gives 4 times. From the overall performance of usable radar based on frequency of error occurrence, the minimum error was given by radar C which makes it the most effective to be used in bitumen liquid level detection as it provided more reliable, repeatable and reasonable level measurement results value.

Design of Auto-Stabilization Control Technique for a Quadrotor System

This paper presents the design of auto-stabilization control technique for a quadrotor system. Aquadrotor is a highly nonlinear and has to be stabilized by a suitable control technique. Therefore, the main focus of this research is to design an appropriate control algorithm that able to auto-stabilize the quadrotor at hover. The dynamic modeling of the quadrotor is described by sets of equations of motion that are derived based on the Newton-Euler formalism with the implementation of UKF for parameter identification and state estimation. The control strategy adopted includes feedback linearization coupled with Proportional-Derivative (PD) controller for the translational subsystem and backstepping based Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller for the rotational subsystem. It is developed in MATLAB/Simulink platform and is validated via real-time implementation. Both controllers give satisfactory simulation results, where acceptable peak of overshoot and small steady state errors are achieved. Experimentally, the throttle is controlled in manual mode while attitude angles are stabilized automatically. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed controller is able to effectively stabillized the quadrotor.