Modeling and Control of Liquid Carrying Aerial Vehicle's Endurance and Performance Based on LQR And PID Control Strategies

Quadcopters have become a popular choice for transporting liquids in various industries due to their versatility and maneuverability. In this research, we compare the effectiveness of two control strategies, Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) and Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID), in achieving stability and calculating the energy requirement of a liquid-carrying quadcopter. We present a detailed modeling, design and simulation analysis of the quadcopter control system with both LQR and PID controllers and evaluate their impact on the quadcopter's energy requirement. Our results show that the LQR controller outperforms the PID controller in terms of performance, achieving up to a 12% decrease in energy requirement. Moreover, the decreased energy requirement resulting from the optimized control strategies also leads to improved performance metrics such as reduced oscillations, steady-state error, and overshoot during the quadcopter's trajectory tracking. Our research highlights the importance of selecting an appropriate control strategy for optimizing the energy need and performance of a liquid-carrying quadcopter. The advantages of using LQR controllers over traditional PID controllers can lead to significant improvements in the quadcopter's overall performance and reduced operational costs.