From Tracking to Robust Maneuver Regulation: an Easy-to-Design Approach for VTOL Aerial Robots

TL;DR

This paper introduces a maneuver regulation approach for VTOL aerial robots that enhances robustness by allowing the vehicle to stay on a desired path without tracking a virtual target, demonstrated on a nano-quadrotor.

Contribution

It presents a simple method to convert existing tracking controllers into robust maneuver regulation controllers without additional tuning.

Findings

Maneuver regulation improves robustness against disturbances.

The scheme inherits robustness from tracking controllers.

Experimental validation on a nano-quadrotor shows increased stability.

Abstract

In this paper we present a maneuver regulation scheme for Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) micro aerial vehicles (MAV). Differently from standard trajectory tracking, maneuver regulation has an intrinsic robustness due to the fact that the vehicle is not required to chase a virtual target, but just to stay on a (properly designed) desired path with a given velocity profile. In this paper we show how a robust maneuver regulation controller can be easily designed by converting an existing tracking scheme. The resulting maneuvering controller has three main appealing features, namely it: (i) inherits the robustness properties of the tracking controller, (ii) gains the appealing features of maneuver regulation, and (iii) does not need any additional tuning with respect to the tracking controller. We prove the correctness of the proposed scheme and show its effectiveness in experiments on a nano-quadrotor. In particular, we show on a nontrivial maneuver how external disturbances acting on the quadrotor cause instabilities in the standard tracking, while marginally affect the maneuver regulation scheme.