Research Article Model-Based Design, HIL Testing, and Rapid Control PrototypingofaLow-CostPOCQuadcopterwithStabilityAnalysis and Control Abdullah Irfan , Muhammad Gufran Khan , Arslan Ahmed Amin, Syed Ali Mohsin, Muhammad Adnan , and Adil Zulfiqar Department of Electrical Engineering, National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Chiniot-Faisalabad Campus, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan Correspondence should be addressed to Abdullah Irfan; f180868@nu.edu.pk Received 15 October 2021; Revised 29 January 2022; Accepted 22 February 2022; Published 28 March 2022 Academic Editor: Chao Liu Copyright©2022AbdullahIrfanetal.isisanopenaccessarticledistributedundertheCreativeCommonsAttributionLicense, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), particularly quadcopters, have several medical, agriculture, surveillance, and security ap- plications. However, the use of this innovative technology for civilian applications is still very limited in low-income countries due to the high cost, whereas low-cost controllers available in the market are often tuned using the hit and trial approach and are limited for specific applications. is paper addresses this issue and presents a novel proof of concept (POC) low-cost quadcopter UAV design approach using a systematic Model-Based Design (MBD) method for mathematical modeling, simulation, real-time testing, and prototyping. e quadcopter dynamic model is developed, and controllers are designed using Proportional Integral, and Derivative (PID), Pole Placement, and Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) control strategies. e stability of the controllers is also checked using Lyapunov stability analysis. For verification and validation (V&V) of the design, Software-in-the-Loop, Processor-in-the-Loop, Hardware-in-the-loop testing, and Rapid Control Prototyping have been performed. e V&V methods of the MBD approach showed practically valid results with a stable flight of the quadcopter prototype. e proposed low-cost POC quadcopter design approach can be easily modified to have enhanced features, and quadcopters with different design parameters can be assembled using this approach for a diverse range of applications. 1. Introduction Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are quite popular as they are small and can be flown without a pilot, either remotely or through autonomous algorithms. UAVs have applications in several domains like agriculture, military, rescue missions, etc. [1]. Several types of UAVs have been introduced; their classification can be done according to size and payload, aerodynamic configuration, applications, level of autonomy, or their range of action [2]. e quadcopter/quadrotor is a type of UAV compact and possesses diverse capabilities like better maneuver- ability, stationary hovering, and vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) [3]. A quadcopter consists of a frame/skeleton responsible for supporting its components. It has four propellers attached to Brushless DC (BLDC) motors to control the motion of the quadcopter [4]; each motor speed varies according to the control strategy to maintain its stability. It also contains electronic speed controllers (ESCs), which provide PWM signals to the motors, a flight con- troller, and a battery. e rotation of the motors is paired as clockwise and anticlockwise to keep the total angular mo- mentum zero. During the flight, the quadcopter experiences external forces like gravity, viscous friction, propellers, thrust and drag forces, etc. and thus makes the gyroscope output of the quadcopter nonlinear [5]. Such nonlinear behavior and the mechanical structure of the system make the quadcopter quite complex to control [6]. To counter these challenges, the controllermustbedesignedinsuchawaythatitcankeepthe Hindawi Complexity Volume 2022, Article ID 1492170, 16 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/1492170