Patent ID: 8983684
Filing Date: 2015-03-17
Classification: A63H,G05D

Abstract:
1. A method of dynamically controlling the attitude of a rotary-wing drone having multiple rotors driven by respective individually-controlled motors, for automatically executing a roll or loop type preprogrammed maneuver in which the drone performs a complete turn about an axis of rotation constituted by the roll axis or the pitching axis respectively of the drone, the method comprising, on receiving an instruction to trigger the preprogrammed maneuver, executing a sequence of steps of: a) simultaneously controlling the motors in such a manner as to impart a prior upward vertical thrust impulse to the drone; and b) controlling the motors in such a manner as to cause the drone to rotate about the axis of rotation from an initial angular position to a final angular position with zero angular velocity, this step including a stage of subjecting the motors to open-loop control, wherein step b) comprises the successive substeps of: b1) applying individual non-servo-controlled control to the motors so as to cause the drone to rotate about the axis of rotation from an initial angular position to a predetermined intermediate angular position; and then b2) applying individual control to the motors, servo-controlled to a reference target trajectory, so as to finish off the rotation of the drone through one complete turn about the axis of rotation, progressively from the intermediate angular position with a non-zero angular velocity to a final angular position with a zero angular velocity, wherein step b2) comprises the substeps consisting in: b21) imparting a value for stopping time between the intermediate angular position and the final angular position; b22) measuring the angular velocity of the drone on reaching the predetermined intermediate angular position; b23) from said stopping time imparted in step b21) and from the measurement acquired in step b22), setting parameters of a predetermined predictive function that models optimum continuous variation of the angular position of the drone as a function of time from the intermediate angular position to the final angular position at the end of the imparted time; and b24) on the basis of the predictive function as set in step b23), generating setpoint values corresponding to a target angular position precalculated at a given instant, and applying said setpoint values to a servo-control loop controlling the motors of the drone.