In a general research setting, theoretical models combined with simulation provide the backbone for guidance, navigation, and control systems design. While these are both powerful tools to represent physical systems, they are inferior replacements to practical implementation on physical hardware. However, a myriad of factors often prevents such implementation. These include, but are not limited to, the high cost of hardware, user-unfriendly interfaces, and systems not being designed for ease of modification of software or hardware.
The goal of this research was to provide a low-cost solution to this problem. In this talk, we describe the development of such a platform that includes the design of a 3D-printable quadrotor aerial vehicle with inexpensive off-the-shelf components, user-friendly flight controller software (including guidance, navigation, and control modules), a modular six degree of freedom simulation environment, and physical hardware for use in testing the quadrotor in a safe manner prior to free flight. A demonstration of the complete platform will be presented.
