Rotor-force controller for multirotors under aerodynamic interferences

The use of multirotors for inspection tasks requires the ability to perform high-precision flights close to the environment, where aerodynamic effects appear and make control of the platform difficult. This paper presents a control solution for multirotors to deal with aerodynamic effects and other disturbances produced at a motor level. It combines the inclusion of a mechatronic system embedded in the multirotor power plant and a new control architecture focused on enabling a Rotor-Force Controller (RFC) at a motor level. Unlike model-based solutions developed in recent years, our solution can be used with any type of motor perturbation, such as ground and ceiling aerodynamic effects, wind effects, battery discharge and rotor damage effects. The implementation of both parts, the mechatronics system and the Rotor-Force Controller, are presented in this paper and experimentally validated in a custom testbench. The experiment shows that the proposed Rotor-Force Controller reduces the impact of aerodynamic effects on platform attitude approximately 80% compared with the results without the Rotor-Force Controller. •A control solution for multirotors to reject aerodynamic disturbances is presented.•The Rotor-Force Controller (RFC) closes the loop at the rotor force level.•The solutions incorporate a mechatronic system embedded within the multirotor to measure the real motor thrust.•The proposed solution has been incorporated into an open-source autopilot.•Experimental validation demonstrates an approximate 80% reduction in the impact of aerodynamic effects with the RFC.