Robust Trajectory Tracking for Underactuated Quadrotors with Prescribed Performance

TL;DR

This paper develops a control protocol for underactuated quadrotors that guarantees prescribed performance in trajectory tracking without needing dynamic model parameters or disturbance information, verified through simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a modified prescribed performance control method tailored for underactuated quadrotors, ensuring stability and performance without relying on system parameters.

Findings

Tracking errors stay within predefined bounds

Control protocol works without model parameters or disturbance info

Simulation confirms theoretical guarantees

Abstract

We propose a control protocol based on the prescribed performance control (PPC) methodology for a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Quadrotor systems belong to the class of underactuated systems for which the original PPC methodology cannot be directly applied. We introduce the necessary design modifications to stabilize the considered system with prescribed performance. The proposed control protocol does not use any information of dynamic model parameters or exogenous disturbances. Furthermore, the stability analysis guarantees that the tracking errors remain inside of designer-specified time-varying functions, achieving prescribed performance independent from the control gains' selection. Finally, simulation results verify the theoretical results.