Design and Simulation of a Neuroevolutionary Controller for a Quadcopter Drone

Abstract

The problem addressed in the present paper is the design of a controller based on an evolutionary neural network for autonomous flight in quadrotor systems. The controller’s objective is to govern the quadcopter in such a way that it reaches a specific position, bearing on attitude limitations during flight and upon reaching a target. Given the complex nature of quadcopters, an appropriate neural network architecture and a training algorithm were designed to guide a quadcopter toward a target. The designed controller was implemented as a single multi-layer perceptron. On the basis of the quadcopter’s current state, the developed neurocontroller produces the correct rotor speed values, optimized in terms of both attitude-limitation compliance and speed. The neural network training was completed using a custom evolutionary algorithm whose design put particular emphasis on the cost function’s definition. The developed neurocontroller was tested in simulation to drive a quadcopter to autonomously follow a complex path. The obtained simulated results show that the neurocontroller manages to effortlessly follow several types of paths with adequate precision while maintaining low travel times.