Linear-quadratic regulator controller design for quadrotor based on pigeon-inspired optimization

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to propose a new algorithm for linear-quadratic regulator (LQR) controller of a quadrotor with fast and stable performance, which is based on pigeon-inspired optimization (PIO). Design/methodology/approach - The controller is based on LQR. The determinate parameters are optimized by PIO, which is a newly proposed swarm intelligent algorithm inspired by the characteristics of homing pigeons. Findings - The PIO-optimized LQR controller can obtain the optimized parameters and achieve stabilization in about 3 s. Practical implications - The PIO-optimized LQR controller can be easily applied to the flight formation, autonomous aerial refueling (AAR) and detection of unmanned aerial vehicles, especially applied to (AAR) in this paper. Originality/value - This research applies PIO to optimize the tuning parameters of LQR, which can considerably improve the fast and stabilizing performance of attitude control. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.