Adaptive second-order sliding mode control of UAVs for civil applications

Quadcopters, as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have great potential in civil applications such as surveying, building monitoring, and infrastructure condition assessment. Quadcopters, however, are relatively sensitive to noises and disturbances so that their performance may be quickly downgraded in the case of inadequate control, system uncertainties and/or external disturbances. In this study, we deal with the quadrotor low-level control by proposing a robust scheme named the adaptive second-order quasi-continuous sliding mode control (adaptive 2-QCSM). The ultimate objective is for robust attitude control of the UAV in monitoring and inspection of built infrastructure. First, the mathematical model of the quadcopter is derived considering nonlinearity, strong coupling, uncertain dynamics and external disturbances. The control design includes the selection of the sliding manifold and the development of quasi-continuous second-order sliding mode controller with an adaptive gain. Stability of the overall control system is analysed by using a global Lyapunov function for convergence of both the sliding dynamics and adaptation scheme. Extensive simulations have been carried out for evaluation. Results show that the proposed controller can achieve robustness against disturbances or parameter variations and has better tracking performance in comparison with experimental responses of a UAV in a real-time monitoring task

Adaptive twisting sliding mode control for quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles

© 2017 IEEE. This work addresses the problem of robust attitude control of quadcopters. First, the mathematical model of the quadcopter is derived considering factors such as nonlinearity, external disturbances, uncertain dynamics and strong coupling. An adaptive twisting sliding mode control algorithm is then developed with the objective of controlling the quadcopter to track desired attitudes under various conditions. For this, the twisting sliding mode control law is modified with a proposed gain adaptation scheme to improve the control transient and tracking performance. Extensive simulation studies and comparisons with experimental data have been carried out for a Solo quadcopter. The results show that the proposed control scheme can achieve strong robustness against disturbances while is adaptable to parametric variations

Adaptive Super-twisting Second-order Sliding Mode for Attitude Control of Quadcopter UAVs

This work addresses the modelling and control aspects for quadcopter or drone unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). First, the mathematical model of the drone is derived by identifying significant parameters and the negligible ones are treated as disturbances. The control design begins with the switching surface selection, then, an Adaptive Super Twisting Sliding Mode (ASTSM) Control algorithm is applied to adjust attitudes of the quadcopter under harsh conditions such as nonlinear, strong coupling, high uncertainties and disturbances. Simulation results show that the proposed controller can achieve robust operation with disturbance rejection, parametric variation adaptation as well as chattering attenuation. Comparisons with some commonly used and advanced controllers in a quadcopter model show advantages of the proposed control scheme