Design of a Remote Controller for Flapping MAVs Based on Motions

Flapping MAV (FMAV) is so small, very fast, and manual flight is very difficult. Especially when the heading of the FMAV in flight is changed 180°, it is very difficult to control because the pilot should give the opposite operation to obtain the same response when he is not rotated. The difficulty of FMAV remote control mainly comes from the fact that the pilot should be able to maneuver several control sticks simultaneously with various 3-dimensional situations, which require the pilot to be trained very long time. To overcome the difficulty, we suggest a remote controller based on its attitude and linear velocity motion. The remote controller is equipped with a 9-axis MEMS IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) which includes three-axis gyroscopes, three-axis accelerometers, and three-axis magnetometers for attitude measurement. The attitude and heading of the remote controller are obtained by applying the Kalman filter algorithm using the measurement data from these sensors. We estimate precise linear velocity motion by removing acceleration noise using a smoothing spline. As a result of linear velocity estimation, it showed good results in removing acceleration noise. The estimated motion of the controller allows the pilot to intuitively control the aircraft. Thus, even unskilled pilots can control it easily and reliably.