A novel concept of attitude control for large multirotor-UAVs based on moving mass control

In this work we aim to explore the concept of using the shift in the center of gravity, which in turn produces roll and pitch moments, to control the attitude of the quadrotor. We propose constructing a UAV with moving masses within each rotor arm. In this paper we show the mathematical equations describing the dynamics of the proposed system, propose a classical PID based control approach and analyze and confirm its stability. Furthermore, we analyze the effectiveness of the proposed controller in a Gazebo based simulation environment. Finally, we build a laboratory testbed that emulates the dynamics of the system and test our proposed control strategy.