This paper addresses the problem of change detection for a quadcopter in the presence ofwind disturbances. Different aspects of the quadcopter dynamics and various flight conditions have beeninvestigated. First, the wind is modeled using the Dryden wind model as a sum of a low-frequent and aturbulent part. Since the closed-loop control can compensate for system changes and disturbances andthe effect of the wind disturbance is significant, the residuals obtained from a standard simulation modelcan be misleading. Instead, a sensor-to-sensor submodel of the quadcopter is selected to detect a changein the payload using the Instrumental Variables (IV) cost function. It is shown that the mass variationcan be detected using the IV cost function in different flight scenarios.

In this work, we estimate a model of the vertical dynamics of a quadcopter and explain how this model can be used for mass estimation and diagnosis of system changes. First, a standard thrust model describing the relation between the calculated control signals of the rotors and the thrust that is commonly used in literature is estimated. The estimation results are compared to those using a refined thrust model and it turns out that the refined model gives a significant improvement. The combination of a nonlinear model and closed-loop data poses some challenges and it is shown that an instrumental variables approach can be used to obtain accurate estimates. Furthermore, we show that the refined model opens up for fault detection of the quadcopter. More specifically, this model can be used for mass estimation and also for diagnosis of other parameters that might vary between and during missions.

In recent years, the quadcopter has become a popular platform both in research activities and in industrial development. Its success is due to its increased performance and capabilities, where modeling and control synthesis play essential roles. These techniques have been used for stabilizing the quadcopter in different flight conditions such as hovering and climbing. The performance of the control system depends on parameters of the quadcopter which are often unknown and need to be estimated. The common approach to determine such parameters is to rely on accurate measurements from external sources, i.e., a motion capture system. In this work, only measurements from low-cost onboard sensors are used. This approach and the fact that the measurements are collected in closed-loop present additional challenges.

First, a general overview of the quadcopter is given and a detailed dynamic model is presented, taking into account intricate aerodynamic phenomena. By projecting this model onto the vertical axis, a nonlinear vertical submodel of the quadcopter is obtained. The Instrumental Variable (IV) method is used to estimate the parameters of the submodel using real data. The result shows that adding an extra term in the thrust equation is essential.

In a second contribution, a sensor-to-sensor estimation problem is studied, where only measurements from an onboard Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) are used. The roll submodel is derived by linearizing the general model of the quadcopter along its main frame. A comparison is carried out based on simulated and experimental data. It shows that the IV method provides accurate estimates of the parameters of the roll submodel whereas some other common approaches are not able to do this.

In a sensor-to-sensor modeling approach, it is sometimes not obvious which signals to select as input and output. In this case, several common methods give different results when estimating the forward and inverse models. However, it is shown that the IV method will give identical results when estimating the forward and inverse models of a single-input single-output (SISO) system using finite data. Furthermore, this result is illustrated experimentally when the goal is to determine the center of gravity of a quadcopter.