Modeling of the quadrotor UAV based on screw theory via dual quaternion

Quadrotor UAVs have attracted significant research interests in recent years, especially their ability of fast and precise maneuvers in constrained environments. Nevertheless, when analysizing the kinematic motion of a quadrotor UAV, most literatures describe the rotation and translation separately. Those modeling methods will limit the maneuverability and control accuracy. This paper first introduces dual quaternion which is a novel and compact mathematical tool to provide an efficient global transformation for the integrated translation and rotation maneuver missions. Then the dynamic model is obtained by the Lagrangian formulation. This integrated modeling method will make the quadrotor UAV achieve higher maneuverability, which is of utmost importance for maneuver missions.