Trajectory control of a quadrotor using a control allocation approach

Abstract

Abstract-A quadrotor is an underactuated unmanned aerial vehicle with four inputs to control the dynamics. Trajectory control of a quadrotor is a challenging task and usually tackled in a hierarchical framework where desired/reference attitude angles are analytically determined from the desired command signals, i.e. virtual controls, that control the positional dynamics of the quadrotor and the desired yaw angle is set to some constant value. Although this method is relatively straightforward, it may produce large and nonsmooth reference angles which must be saturated and low-pass filtered. In this work, we show that the determination of desired attitude angles from virtual controls can be viewed as a control allocation problem and it can be solved numerically using nonlinear optimization where certain magnitude and rate constraints can be imposed on the desired attitude angles and the yaw angle need not be constant. Simulation results for both analytical and numerical methods have been presented and compared. Results for constrained optimization show that the flight performance is quite satisfactory.

A neurobiologically-inspired intelligent trajectory tracking control for unmanned aircraft systems with uncertain system dynamics and disturbance

“…Starting from its initial position, the UAS should vertically take off and reach an altitude of 1 m, while keeping its X , Y , θ , ϕ and ψ states equal to zero. For the purpose of making a comparison, two similar experiments were performed, but using the proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controller introduced in Bresciani (2008) and Control Allocation Approach (CAA) introduced in Zaki et al (2017) instead of the BELBIC controller. Figure 4 shows the output of the controlled system by means of the PID controller, Control Allocation Approach (CAA) and the BELBIC-inspired controller.…”

“…In order to make a comparison, in addition to the BELBIC-inspired strategy, two similar experiments were performed using the PID controller introduced in Bresciani (2008) and Control Allocation Approach (CAA) introduced in Zaki et al (2017) instead. Figures 6 and 7 show the aircraft (X, Y, Z) positions and (Roll, Pitch, Yaw) angles, as controlled by the PID, Control Allocation Approach (CAA), and the BELBIC-inspired controller, respectively.…”

“…The disturbance comes in the form of a torque of 2 Nm applied to the quad rotorcraft pitch angle. In order to make a comparison, two similar experiments were performed, using the PID controller introduced in Bresciani (2008) and Control Allocation Approach (CAA) introduced in Zaki et al (2017) instead of the BELBIC controller. Figure 8 shows the pitch angle and rear motor control effort of the quad rotorcraft generated when using the PID controller, CAA controller and the BELBIC-inspired controller.…”

On Negotiating Aggressive Quadrotor Attitude Tracking Maneuvers Under Actuator Constraints

“…Proposition 1. In regards to (11)- (13), the attitude error vector, (12), is well defined in (16). Thus for a tracking command…”

Control of a Hovering Quadrotor UAV Subject to Periodic Disturbances

“…Waslander and Wang [5] used Dryden wind to model wind velocity experienced by the quadrotor and estimated disturbance was used to improve the positioning accuracy. Robust control of a rotary-wing UAVs using a hierarchical structure were considered [6] - [9]. It consists of two parts: upper level control is used for the positional dynamics which generates virtual controls and lower level control is used to for the attitude dynamics which provides tracking according to desired angles computed from virtual controls.…”