IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 25, NO.

4, AUGUST 2009 809

Real-Time Stabilization of an Eight-Rotor UAV

Using Optical Flow
Hugo Romero, Sergio Salazar, and Rogelio Lozano, Member, IEEE

Abstract—An original configuration of a small aerial vehicle

having eight rotors is presented. Four rotors are devoted to the
stabilization of the orientation of the helicopter, and the other four
are used to drive the lateral displacements. A precompensation on
the roll and pitch angles has been introduced so that the attitude
dynamics is practically independent of the translational dynam-
ics. This compensation is directly related to the velocity of the
lateral motors. The dynamical model is obtained using the Euler–
Lagrange approach. The proposed configuration is particularly
useful for image processing since the the camera orientation is
held constant. The eight-rotor rotorcraft is simpler to pilot than
other rotorcrafts. A control strategy is proposed that uses the opti-
cal flow measurements to achieve a hover flight that is robust with
respect to perturbations like wind. The new aerial configuration
and control strategy have been tested in real-time experiments.
Index Terms—Eight-rotor rotorcraft, optical flow (OF), real- Fig. 1. New aircraft configuration having eight rotors.
time stabilization, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
I. INTRODUCTION Small UAVs will most likely perform these tasks due to their
NMANNED aerial vehicles (UAVs) are expected to be- relatively low cost, ability to fly into difficult and maybe hostile
U come a major part of the aviation industry over the next few
years, primarily enabled by developments in computer science,
locations, and the short amount of time needed to get them in
the air. Rotary-wing UAVs are particularly useful because they
automatic control, communications, and sensor technologies. are able to hover and fly in reduced spaces to achieve a large
UAVs will likely make a major impact in surveillance and remote variety of missions.
data collection. Examples of applications include fireground In this paper, we present a new configuration of a multirotor
(active bushfire) surveillance, crop and vegetation surveying, aircraft having eight rotors. The rotorcraft is relatively small
emergency data communications, and maintaining the security (100 cm × 100 cm × 30 cm) and is low cost and harmless
of people and assets against terrorist-related threats [3]. For these to people. The inner four rotors or main rotors are devoted to
reasons, UAVs have aroused a great interest in the research and stabilize the orientation of the flying machine, while the four
academic circles in recent years, using them as a platform for external rotors (lateral rotors) are used to perform the lateral
many applications and pure academic research [2], [13], [14]. displacements of the UAV (see Fig. 1). In practice, this plat-
form is able to perform vertical takeoff and landing, hovering,
Manuscript received October 3, 2008; revised January 14, 2009 and March 4, and translational flight. The main advantage of the proposed
2009. First published April 24, 2009; current version published July 31, 2009. configuration with respect to a four-rotor helicopter is that the
This paper was recommended for publication by Associate Editor K. Iagnemma
and Editor W. K. Chung upon evaluation of the reviewers’ comments. This work attitude dynamics is decoupled from the translational dynamics.
was supported in part by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologı́a, Sistema Indeed, four-rotor rotorcrafts must tilt in order to move forward.
Nacional de Investigadores and Secretarı́a de Educación Pública-Programa de This implies that the rotational and translational movements are
Mejoramiento del Profesorado, México.
H. Romero is with the Center for Research on Information Technologies coupled.
and Systems, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo, 42184 Pachuca, The main reason to decouple the translational and rotational
Mexico, and also with the Laboratorio Franco-Mexicano de Informática y dynamics is to be able to accurately measure the horizontal
Automática Aplicadas, Centre National de la Recherche Scientific, Centro
de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados, Mexico City, Mexico (e-mail: speed of the rotorcraft. Indeed, a camera is used to measure
hromero72@gmail.com). optical flow (OF) that is related to the horizontal speed. It turns
S. Salazar is with the Laboratorio Franco-Mexicano de Informática y Au- out that any change in the attitude of the camera, which is fixed
tomática Aplicadas, Franco-Mexicano de Informática y Automática Aplicadas,
Centre National de la Recherche Scientific, Centro de Investigación y de Estu- to the aircraft frame, will produce erroneous location and speed
dios Avanzados, Mexico City, Mexico (e-mail: sergio.salazar.cruz@gmail.com). measurements that will cause some unstable behavior [5]. We
R. Lozano is with Heudiasyc, the University of Technology of Compiègne, have observed such phenomena experimentally using a four-
Centre de Recherches de Royallieu, 60205 Compiègne, France, and also with
Franco-Mexicano de Informática y Automática Aplicadas, Centre National de la rotor rotorcraft. After several unsuccessful attempts to improve
Recherche Scientific, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados, Mexico the OF measurement using a four-rotor aircraft, we have decided
City, Mexico (e-mail: rlozano@hds.utc.fr). to build an aircraft that holds the camera at a fixed orientation.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. The prototype that has been built is shown in Fig. 1. We have
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2009.2018972 noted that the airflow produced by a lateral propeller increases
1552-3098/$26.00 © 2009 IEEE
810
Fig. 2. Control system architecture scheme.
the lift of the inner propeller close to it, which, in turn, affects
the orientation of the aircraft. In order to avoid such phenomena,
we have introduced a precompensation on each inner propeller
to effectively obtain translational and rotational dynamics that
are independent. The dynamical model of the flying machine
has been obtained using the Euler–Lagrange formulation. The
dynamical model is relatively simple and is composed of six
independent second-order systems for pitch, roll, yaw, x, y, and
z. Each one of these subsystems is regulated using a proportional
and derivative (PD) controller. We have experimentally tested
the eight-rotor aircraft indoors using the OF measurement and
outdoors using a GPS.
The outline of this paper is as follows: Section II presents
the experimental platform description and the avionic system.
Section III describes the mathematical nonlinear model using
the Euler–Lagrange approach of the multirotor mini-rotorcraft.
Section IV introduces the control strategy to stabilize the mul-
tirotor platform. Section V is devoted to describing the transla-
tional speed estimation methods (OF and GPS). The real-time
experiments are shown in Section VI, while concluding remarks
are finally given in Section VII.
II. PLATFORM ARCHITECTURE
The platform is composed of an eight-rotor aircraft which has
two RABBIT microprocessor RCM3400 on board. These micro-
processors have the following main features: module running at
29.4 MHz, 512K flash memory, four PWM outputs, six serial
ports, and two input capture channels. The first microprocessor
runs the control algorithm in real time to stabilize the eight-rotor
rotorcraft, and therefore, it reads the information provided by
the inertial navigation system (INS) and the GPS sensors and
sends the control signals to the four inner motors. The second
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 25, NO. 4, AUGUST 2009
microprocessor is used to compute the PWM level output to
control the lateral rotors, using the information provided by the
OF measurement or GPS measurement.
The platform for the OF application consists of a single-
camera Kingfishers combined with the INS Microbotics MIDG
II INS/GPS, which is a combination of accelerometers, gyros,
magnetometers, and GPS signals. Pitch and roll are basically
obtained from a combination of accelerometers and gyros mea-
surements (complementary filters) [9]–[11]. Yaw is obtained
from a combination of magnetometer and gyro signals. The im-
age is captured by a camera and is transmitted using a 2.4-GHz
emitter. The ground station is composed of a video receiver
of 2.4 GHz, the frame grabber card PCMCIA ImperX with ca-
pacity to process up to 30 frames/s, but in our application, the
rate is 15 frames/s, and finally, an image processing code is
developed on C++ on a ground station computer to obtain
the OF and, more specifically, the translational velocity of our
flying machine. The data obtained from each couple of con-
secutive images are transmitted via modem to the second mi-
croprocessor embedded in the rotorcraft. It can also be used
to control the lateral displacement in addition to the OF (or
GPS) measurement feedback. The platform requires 12 V at
15 A power supply, weighs 1.2 kg, and has a payload of 250 g.
The inertial measurement unit is composed of a three-axis
gyro with range of ±300◦ /s, a three-axis accelerometer with
range of ±6g, and a three-axis magnetometer. The INS provides
the angular rate, the acceleration, and the direction of the earth’s
magnetic field with a sampling rate of up to 50 Hz. We have also
tested our platform using the measurements given by the GPS.
The position and velocity are available directly from the GPS
receiver that has a sampling rate of up to 5 Hz.
III. DYNAMICAL MODEL
The aerial robot under consideration consists of a rigid cross
frame equipped with eight rotors, as shown in Fig. 3, where ψ is
the yaw angle around the z-axis, θ is the pitch angle around the
y-axis, and φ is the roll angle around the x-axis. In order to avoid
the yaw drift due to the reactive torques, the main rotors are such
that the right and left rotors rotate clockwise, while the front and
rear rotors rotate counterclockwise. Similarly, the external lat-
eral motors located on the same axis rotate in opposite directions
to avoid interacting with the roll and pitch displacements.
In Fig. 3, M1 through M4 are the front, right, rear, and left
main motors, respectively, while M5 through M8 are the front,
right, rear, and left lateral motors, respectively.
The vertical motion is achieved by increasing or decreasing
the total thrust of the main rotors. The yaw angular displace-
ment is obtained by increasing (decreasing) the speed of the front
and rear motors while decreasing (increasing) the speed of the
right and left motors. Forward/backward (left/right) displace-
ment is performed through a differential speed of the front/back
(left/right) external rotors.
The dynamical model of the aircraft will be obtained us-
ing the Lagrangian method. This approach is based on the
two basic forms of energy stored in dynamical systems: the
kinetic energy and the potential energy. Let I = {i, j, k} be an
ROMERO et al.: REAL-TIME STABILIZATION OF AN EIGHT-ROTOR UAV USING OPTICAL FLOW 811

generalized force
d ∂L ∂L
− =F (7)
dt ∂ q̇ ∂q
where F = (Fξ , τ ). Fξ defines the translational force applied to
the aerial robot due to the control inputs and relative to the frame
I, and τ is the generalized moments vector. The small body
forces are ignored, and we only consider the principal control
inputs u, ux , uy , and τ , where u represents the total thrust, ux is
the control input for x-axis displacement, uy is the control input
for the y-axis displacement, and τ is the generalized moment.
Then, the force applied to the mini-helicopter relative to the
frame B is defined as
F̄ = uxı̄ + uy j̄ + uz k̄ (8)
where
ux = ux r − ux l = f5 − f7 (9)
Fig. 3. Eight-rotor rotorcraft scheme. Where fi is the force produced by uy = uy r − uy l = f8 − f6 (10)
the motor M i with i = 1, 2, . . . , 8, and fj with j = 9, 10, 11, and 12 are the
additional forces produced by the lateral motors. uz = u + f9 + f10 + f11 + f12 (11)

 where ux r and ux l are the control inputs for the front motor
external reference set of axis, and let B = ı̄, j̄ , k̄ denote a set and the rear motor in x-axis respectively, and uy r and uy l are
of coordinates fixed to the rigid aircraft, as shown in Fig. 3. defined similarly for the right motor and the left motor in y-axis.
Let q = (x, y, z, ψ, θ, φ) ∈ IR6 be the generalized coordi- u is defined as
nates vector for the flying machine, where (x, y, z) denote the
u = f1 + f2 + f3 + f4
position of the center of mass of the rotorcraft relative to the
frame I, and (ψ, θ, φ) are the three Euler angles (yaw, pitch, and with
roll) that describe the orientation of the aerial vehicle. There-
fore, the model could be separated in two coordinate subsystems: fi = ki ωi2 , i = 1, . . . , 8
translational and rotational. They are defined, respectively, by where ki > 0 is a parameter depending on the density of air,
ξ = (x, y, z) ∈ IR3 (1) the radius, the shape, the pitch angle of the blade, and ωi is the
angular speed of the each motor “i” (Mi ,i = 1, . . . , 8). There
η = (ψ, θ, φ) ∈ IR3 . (2) exist additional forces f9 to f12 acting on each one of the four
The translational kinetic energy of the rotorcraft is expressed as main rotors (see Fig. 3). These forces are due to the airflow
generated by the lateral rotors, which means that the magnitude
m ˙T ˙ △
Ttrans =
ξ ξ (3) of vectors f9 to f12 are functions of the lateral airflow produced
2 by the corresponding lateral rotor. The induced wind speed in a
where m denotes the mass of the rotorcraft. The rotational ki- propeller is defined as follows:
netic energy is given by   12
f
△ 1 V = (12)
Trot = η̇ T Jη̇ (4) 2ρA
2
where J is the inertia matrix. where f is the thrust generated by the propeller, ρ is the air
The only potential energy which needs to be considered is density, and A is the propeller area [7]. In order to clarify the
due to the standard gravitational force g. Therefore, potential notation, we will use the subscripts p for the main rotor and
energy is expressed as subscript s for the lateral rotor. The thrust f generated by the
main rotor and the lateral rotor can be expressed as
U = mgz. (5)
Following the approach, the Lagrangian is given by fp = 2ρAp V̂ Vp (13)

L (q, q̇) = Ttrans + Trot − U where Vp is the induced wind speed in the main propeller, and
V̂ is the total induced wind speed by the set of rotors, which is
m ˙T ˙ 1 T
ξ ξ + η̇ J η̇ − mgz.
= (6) given by
2 2
The model for the full eight-rotor aircraft dynamics is   12
obtained from the Euler–Lagrange equations with external V̂ = (Vs cos α + Vp )2 + (Vs sin α)2 (14)
812 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 25, NO. 4, AUGUST 2009

where ū = ux r + uy r + ux l + uy l . Consequently
Fξ = RF̄
where R is the transformation matrix representing the orienta-
tion of the rotorcraft from B to I. We use cθ to denote cos θ and
sθ for sin θ.
 
cψ cθ cψ sθ sφ − sψ cφ cψ sθ cφ + sψ sφ
R =  sψ cθ sψ sθ sφ + cψ cφ sψ sθ cφ − cψ sφ  . (19)
−sθ cθ sφ cθ cφ
The generalized moment is given by
   4 
τψ j = 1 τM j
△
Fig. 4. Main thrust behavior with incoming lateral wind due to lateral τ =  τθ  =  (f3 − f1 ) dc  (20)
propeller. τφ (f4 − f2 ) dc
where dc is the distance from the center of gravity to any in-
where α is the angle between the main rotor axis and the lateral ternal rotor, and τM j is the couple produced by motor Mj . The
rotor axis. It is important to note that without extra lateral rotor moment-compensation vector is
Vs = 0, this implies that V̂ = Vp , and (13) becomes  
0
fp = 2ρAp Vp2 . (15) △
τc =  bux  . (21)
◦ buy
Introducing (14) into (13) with α = 90 , we obtain
1 Therefore, the Euler–Lagrange equation can be rewritten as
Vs2 2

2
fp = 2ρAp Vp 1 + 2 . (16)
Vp mξ¨ + [0 0 mg]T = Fξ (22)
The additional nonlinear term Vs2 /Vp2 appearing in this
 
1 ∂  T 
Jη̈ + J̇η̇ − η̇ Jη̇ = τ + τc. (23)
equation is related to the airflow produced by the corresponding 2 ∂η
lateral rotor, which does not appear in (15). Nevertheless, this
Note that the Lagrangian function (6) does not contain cross
extra term has an almost linear behavior mainly for large values
terms in the kinetic energy combining ξ˙ and η̇. Defining the
of Vs . In practice, we consider the parameter Vp as constant at
Coriolis vector as
hover, since this parameter depends on the thrust generated by  
the main rotor to stabilize the mini-helicopter. In our experiment, 1 ∂  T 
C (η, η̇) = J̇ − η̇ J (24)
we work in a region where the relationship (Vs /Vp ) ≤ 1 holds. 2 ∂η
It then follows that we can rewrite (23) as
1
Vs2 2 √

1+ 2 ≤ 2. (17) Jη̈ + C (η, η̇) η̇ = τ + τc (25)
Vp
Finally, the equations of motion for the eight-rotor mini-
The thrust behavior with respect to (Vs /Vp ) is shown in rotorcraft are expressed as
Fig. 4. Fig. 4(a) shows the region defined by Vs ≤ Vp where
the nonlinear model is approximated by a straight line with mξ¨ = Fξ + [0 0 − mg]T (26)
slope m̄ = 0.64 that intercepts the vertical axis at yb = 0.77. Jη̈ = τ + τc − C (η, η̇) η.
˙ (27)
Fig. 4(b) shows the nonlinear behavior of (17) when Vs > Vp ,
which is approximately a straight line with slope m̄ = 1 without IV. CONTROL STRATEGY DESIGN
drift in the vertical axis.
The additional term in (16) will be compensated to effectively In this section, we present a feedback control scheme for the
decouple the translational and rotational displacements. attitude stabilization and position of the eight-rotor aircraft. Tak-
The force in each one of the four main rotors is affected by the ing advantage of the fact that by compensating the perturbation
lateral thrust fs of the corresponding lateral rotor. The lateral forces the resulting system has translational and rotational dy-
thrust, in turn, depends on the control actions ux and uy applied namics that are decoupled, we are able to propose a simple linear
to lateral motors. Considering identical lateral motors, forces f9 control strategy. In order to further simplify the analysis, and
to f12 can be expressed as follows: since J is nonsingular, let us consider the following linearizing
control law:
f9 = bux r f10 = buy r f11 = bux l f12 = buy l
τ = C(η, η̇)η̇ + J(τ̃ + τc ) − τc (28)
where b ≥ 0 is the approximate slope in Fig. 4(a). Then, the
force vector F̄ can be rewritten as follows: where
T
F̄ = [ux uy u + bū] (18) τ̃ = [τ̃ψ τ̃θ τ̃φ ]T (29)
ROMERO et al.: REAL-TIME STABILIZATION OF AN EIGHT-ROTOR UAV USING OPTICAL FLOW 813

are the new inputs. Then mÿ = uy (45)

η̈ = τ̃ + τc. (30) mz̈ = u − mg + bū. (46)
Rewriting (26), (27) gives Letting us propose the following control inputs:
mẍ = ux cos θ cos ψ − uy (cos φ sin ψ − cos ψ sin θ sin φ) ux = −mσb (b1 ẋ + b2 (x − xd )) (47)
+ (sin φ sin ψ + cos φ cos ψ sin θ) (u + bū) (31) uy = −mσb (b3 ẏ + b4 (y − yd )) (48)
mÿ = ux cos θ sin ψ + uy (cos φ cos ψ + sin θ sin φ sin ψ) u = −mσb (b5 ż + b6 (z − zd )) + mg − bū (49)
− (cos ψ sin φ − cos φ sin θ sin ψ) (u + bū) (32)
then the translational dynamics (44)–(46) becomes
mz̈ = −ux sin θ + uy cos θ sin φ − mg
ẍ = −σb (b1 ẋ + b2 (x − xd )) (50)
+ cos θ cos φ (u + bū) (33)
ÿ = −σb (b3 ẏ + b4 (y − yd )) (51)
ψ̈ = τ̃ψ (34)
z̈ = −σb (b5 ż + b6 (z − zd )) (52)
θ̈ = τ̃θ + bux (35)
where xd , yd , and zd are the coordinates of the desired position of
φ̈ = τ̃φ + buy (36)
the multirotor aircraft. As in (41)–(43), the control parameters bi ,
where the horizontal plane coordinates are represented by x and for i = 1, . . . , 6, should be carefully chosen to obtain a critically
y, and z is the vertical position. The control inputs u is the damped response for the translational dynamics.
main thrust or main collective input (directed out the bottom of The stability of the translational and rotational dynamics
the aircraft), and τ̃ψ , τ̃θ , and τ̃φ are the new angular moments in (41)–(43) and (50)–(52) is given next, which is inspired
(yawing moment, pitching moment, and rolling moment). The from [12]. This stability analysis is carried out in a continuous-
control inputs to develop lateral displacements are denoted by time framework. In practice, the control algorithms have been
ux and uy . implemented in a microcontroller using the fastest sampling
rate.
A. Attitude Control The closed-loop systems (41)–(43) and (50)–(52) can be rep-
resented as double integrators as follows:
The control of the attitude can be obtained by using the fol-
lowing PD controllers: ẋ1 = x2
τ̃ψ = σa (−a1 ψ̇ − a2 (ψ − ψd )) (37) ẋ2 = ũ. (53)
τ̃θ = σa (−a3 θ̇ − a4 θ) − bux (38) The proposed control law has following structure:
τ̃φ = σa (−a5 φ̇ − a6 φ) − buy (39)
ũ = −σp (k̄1 x1 + k̄2 x2 ). (54)
where σp is a saturation defined as
 p, Then, the candidate Lyapunov function is
if s > p
σp (s) = s, if −p ≤ s ≤ p . (40)  k̄ 1 x 1 + k̄ 2 x 2
1
−p, if s < −p V (x1 , x2 ) = σp (t)dt + k̄1 x22 (55)
0 2
Introducing (37)–(39) into (34)–(36), we obtain
for any constants k̄1 > 0 and k̄2 > 0, and then
ψ̈ = σa (−a1 ψ̇ − a2 (ψ − ψd )) (41)
V̇ (x1 , x2 ) = σp (k̄1 x1 + k̄2 x2 )(k̄1 ẋ1 + k̄2 ẋ2 )
θ̈ = σa (−a3 θ̇ − a4 θ) (42)
+ k̄1 x2 ẋ2
φ̈ = σa (−a5 φ̇ − a6 φ) (43)
= −k̄2 σp2 (k̄1 x1 + k̄2 x2 ). (56)
where ai are positive constants such that the polynomials s2 +
ai s + ai+ 1 are stable (for i = 1, . . . , 6). In practice, the control Note that V (x1 , x2 ) is positive definite, and V̇ (x1 , x2 ) is nega-
parameters ai for i = 1, . . . , 6 are chosen to obtain a critically tive definite; therefore, the closed-loop system is asymptotically
damped controller (see proof below). stable.

B. Horizontal Displacements and Altitude Control

Note that from (41) to (43), ψ, θ, φ → 0. For a time T , large
enough ψ, θ, and φ are arbitrarily small, and therefore, (31)–(33)
reduce to
mẍ = ux
V. ESTIMATION OF THE TRANSLATIONAL SPEED
In this section, we present two methods that have been im-
plemented to estimate the translational speed of the multirotor
aircraft: One of them is vision-based, and the other uses the GPS
(44) measurements directly.
814 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 25, NO. 4, AUGUST 2009

A. OF Measurement
Computer vision is an important tool for robotics. Extract-
ing the relevant information from image sequences from the
scene may allow robots to perform missions autonomously [4].
In this paper, we use the OF from image sequences to esti-
mate the translational speed of the rotorcraft. The estimate of
the horizontal speed will be used to perform autonomous hover
flights without lateral displacement. There exist many different
methods for computing the OF [6], [8]. There exist intensity-
based differential methods, frequency-based filtering methods,
or correlation-based methods. In this paper, we tested the Lucas–
Kanade pyramidal method, which is an intensity-based differ-
ential method [1].
Consider two discrete functions I1 , I2 ∈ Rm u ×n v represent-
ing two gray-scale images at different time instants, and let
Gp i be the gray-scale value of a particular pixel p = (ui , vi )T . Fig. 5. OF basic scheme.
Then, the gray-scale values for pi that appear in two consecutive
images are defined, respectively, as
TABLE I
Gp 1 = I1 (u1 , v1 ), Gp 2 = I2 (u2 , v2 ) CONTROLLER PARAMETERS VALUES

where ui and vi are the row and column pixel coordinates,

respectively. Given a specific image point p1 ∈ I1 , the aim of
the approach is to find another image point p2 ∈ I2 such that
Gp 1 ≈ Gp 2 . Moreover, the relationship between matched pixels
p1 and p2 is given by
p2 = p1 + r = [ u1 + ru v1 + rv ]T
where r = [ ru rv ]T defines the image displacement or OF TABLE II
SATURATION PARAMETERS VALUES
and minimizes the following residual function:
u p 1 +w u v p 2 +w v
 
ǫ(r) = (I1 (p1 ) − I2 (p1 + r))2
u p =u p 1 −w u v p =v p 2 −w v

where wu and wv are two integers that define the size of the
integration window. The Lucas–Kanade OF algorithm has an
adaptive integration window, which means that it is able to
handle large pixel motions and this representation acts as a low-
pass filter (see [1] for a complete description).
OF can be generated by two kinds of observer motion: trans-
lational motion (Ft ) and rotational motion (Fr ). Let us assume
that the camera is moving with translational velocity v and an-
gular velocity ω while viewing an object at distance d and offset
β from the direction of travel, as depicted in Fig. 5. The OF can
be mathematically expressed as follows:
v tonomous hover flight. We have observed, in practice, that the
OF = sin β − ω. (57)
d decoupling strategy presented in Section IV does not exactly de-
The maximal OF is obviously generated when the plane that
contains the features is perpendicular to translational motion
direction (β = 90◦ ) [8]. The velocity can be estimated from
(57) as follows:
OF + ω
v= d.
sin β
Note that singularities in the previous equation appear when
β = 0◦ . Nevertheless, in our case, the roll and pitch angles
are very close to zero, which implies that β = 90◦ ± 3◦ as
a maximal interval when the mini-helicopter is appropriately
stabilized at hover. The measurement of the angular speed ω
is obtained by using the gyro information on each axis. An
altitude-stabilization algorithm in closed loop is used to keep
the distance d constant and equal to some desired value.
VI. PRACTICAL RESULTS
Real-time experiment results are presented in this section to
validate the performance of the eight-rotor rotorcraft during au-
couple the flying vehicle due to unsymmetrical rotor structures.
To compensate for these modeling errors, we have trimmed the
gains in the radio control before the experiments.
The control gains of (41)–(43) and (50)–(52) were adjusted,
in practice, to obtain a fast aircraft response but avoiding me-
(58) chanical oscillations as much as possible, and they are shown in
Table I. Table II shows the saturation values using in the attitude
and horizontal control law. The parameters were also chosen
in such a way that the aircraft attitude remains very close to a
desired point.
ROMERO et al.: REAL-TIME STABILIZATION OF AN EIGHT-ROTOR UAV USING OPTICAL FLOW 815

Fig. 6. Roll angle behavior for the rotorcraft in hover.

Fig. 10. y-Position behavior using OF measurements.

Fig. 7. Pitch angle behavior for the rotorcraft in hover.

Fig. 11. x-Velocity behavior using OF measurements.

Fig. 8. Yaw angle behavior for the rotorcraft in hover.

Fig. 12. y-Velocity behavior using OF measurements.

Fig. 9. x-Position behavior using OF measurements.

The parameters of the camera have been estimated with the

method proposed in [6]. The matrix calibration of the camera is
 
276.78 0 51.5462
Mcal =  0 298.34 120.634  (59)
0 0 1
and the focal distance is f =3.5 mm. The helicopter’s altitude is
regulated in closed loop using an infrared sensor Sharp 2Y0A02.
This sensor measures altitude in the range 0.20–1.5 m. The
desired values for the position are xd = 0, yd = 0, and d =
0.60 m. For such altitude, a relative displacement of 0.01 m is
represented by a four-pixel displacement in the image plane. The
Fig. 13. x-Position behavior using GPS measurements.
time elapsed between two consecutive frames acquired is around
60 ms, which means that the image sampling rate is around 15
FPS.
In the experiment, the mini-helicopter was stabilized at hover
applying the proposed control strategy. The desired position and
angular orientation is zero. The control strategy for stabilizing
the attitude performed well and is shown in Figs. 6–8. The
attitude values are smaller than ±3◦ , and except for a slight
816
Fig. 14. y-Position behavior using GPS measurements.
Fig. 15. x-Velocity behavior using GPS measurements.
Fig. 16. y-Velocity behavior using GPS measurements.
Fig. 17. Input control signal of x-right motor.
disturbance in the pitch angle at around 55 s, we think this noise
may come from the radio communication link. The estimated
linear position and linear velocities using the OF approach are
plotted in Figs. 9–12, while the same variables are shown in the
Figs. 13–16, but in this case, the estimation was obtained using
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 25, NO. 4, AUGUST 2009
Fig. 18. Input control signal of x-left motor.
Fig. 19. Input control signal of y-right motor.
Fig. 20. Input control signal of y-left motor.
GPS. Figs. 17–20 show the control signals applied to each one
of the lateral motors.
VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have proposed a novel multirotorcraft aero-
dynamical configuration whose translational and rotational dis-
placements are decoupled. This feature is particularly useful for
vision application since the orientation of the aircraft can be held
constant independently of the lateral displacements. Indeed, a
camera can be used to estimate the translation speed from the
OF without having to compensate for the errors induced by the
angular displacements. A precompensation has been introduced
to improve the decoupling of the translational and rotational
movements. This precompensation cancels the additional lift
of the inner rotors produced by the airflow coming from the
ROMERO et al.: REAL-TIME STABILIZATION OF AN EIGHT-ROTOR UAV USING OPTICAL FLOW
lateral rotors. The simplified dynamical model of the rotorcraft
is given by six independent double integrators that have been
stabilized using PD controllers. An eight-rotor aircraft proto-
type has been built and tested experimentally with the proposed
on-board control strategy.
We have used two different strategies to estimate the trans-
lational speed: OF indoor and GPS outdoor. The OF measure-
ments were carried out keeping the aircraft at a desired altitude.
Under such conditions the OF technique provided more precise
measurements of the translational speed than GPS. However,
the OF technique has several limitations when used outdoors.
Indeed, the light intensity and the contrast of the image pro-
duce errors in the estimation of the speed. Therefore, GPS
sensors give, in general, better results outdoors than the OF
technique.
It has been experimentally shown that the proposed eight-
rotor configuration is appropriate to achieve velocity damping
indoors using OF and outdoors using GPS. This is an important
step toward autonomous navigation.
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817
Hugo Romero was born in Ixmiquilpan Hidalgo,
Mexico, on November 7, 1972. He received the Bach-
elor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Insti-
tuto Tecnológico de Pachuca, Pachuca, Mexico, in
1996, the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering in
automatic control from the Centro de Investigación
y de Estudios Avanzados (CINVESTAV), Mexico
City, Mexico, in 2001, and the Ph.D. degree in auto-
matic control from the University of Technology of
Compiègne, Compiègne, France, in 2008.
He is currently an Assistant Professor with the
Center for Research on Information Technologies and Systems, Universidad
Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo, Pachuca, Mexico. He also holds a Post-
doctoral position with the Laboratorio Franco-Mexicano de Informática y Au-
tomática Aplicada, UMI-CNRS, CINVESTAV. His current research interests
include computer vision, real-time control applications, nonlinear dynamics
and control, unmanned aerial vehicles, embedded systems, and underactuated
mechanical systems.
Sergio Salazar was born in Tlaxcala, Mexico, on
October 7, 1966. He received the B.S. degree in elec-
tronics engineering form the Benemérita Universidad
Autónoma of Puebla, Puebla, Mexico, in 1992, the
M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the Cen-
tro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados, Mexico
City, Mexico, in 1995, and the Ph.D. degree in auto-
matic control from the University of Technology of
Compiègne (UTC), Compiègne, France, in 2005.
From January to December 2006 and January to
December 2008, he holds a Postdoctoral position
at the Laboratorio Franco-Mexicano de Informática y Automática Aplicada,
Franco-Mexicano de Informática y Automática Aplicadas, Centre National de
la Recherche Scientific, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados. His
current research interests include real-time control applications, embedded sys-
tems, unmanned aerial vehicles, and nonlinear dynamics and control.
Rogelio Lozano (M’04) was born in Monterrey,
Mexico, on July 12, 1954. He received the B.S.
degree in electronic engineering from the National
Polytechnic Institute, Mexico City, Mexico, in 1975,
the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the
Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados
(CINVESTAV), Mexico City, in 1977, and the Ph.D.
degree in automatic control from the Laboratoire
d’Automatique de Grenoble, Grenoble, France, in
1981.
From 1981 to 1989, he was with the Department
of Electrical Engineering, CINVESTAV, where he was the Head of the Section
of Automatic Control from June 1985 to August 1987. He held visiting positions
at the University of Newcastle, Australia, from November 1983 to November
1984, NASA Langley Research Center, Langley, VA, from August 1987 to
August 1988, and the Laboratoire d’Automatique de Grenoble from February
1989 to July 1990. He was promoted to first-class CNRS Research Director in
1997. From January 1995 to December 2007, he was the Head of the Laboratory
Heudiasyc, UMR 6599, CNRS-University of Technology of Compiègne (UTC),
Compiègne, France. Since 1990, he has been the CNRS Research Director at
UTC. He is currently the Head of Laboratorio Franco-Mexicano de Informática
y Automática Aplicada, UMI-CNRS, CINVESTAV. From 1987 to 2000, he was
an Associate Editor of Automatica and has been an Associate Editor of Inter-
national Journal of Adaptive Control and Signal Processing since 1993. His
current research interests include adaptive control of linear and nonlinear sys-
tems, robot manipulators, passive systems, teleoperation, and unmanned aerial
vehicles.