Robust Adaptive Tracking Control of a Quadrotor Helicopter with Uncertainties

This paper studies the trajectory tracking control problem of a quadrotor helicopter in the presence of external disturbances. Firstly, the error dynamic model of quadrotor is divided into two subsystems, i.e., a position subsystem and a attitude subsystem. Secondly, a robust adaptive tracking controller is developed to compensate disturbance uncertainties and improve the tracking performance of quadrotor system. Thirdly, the Lyapunov stability theorem shows the designed control scheme can guarantee global stability of the closed-loop system, and the tracking errors and adaptive estimation errors are all bounded. Lastly, simulation and experimental results illustrate the quadrotor helicopter with the proposed controller has strong robustness against disturbance uncertainties and show good tracking performance for the given reference trajectory.