Fixed-Time Control for a Quadrotor With a Cable-Suspended Load

This paper is concerned with the motion control for a quadrotor with a cable-suspended load (QCSL). A fixed-time control strategy is presented to improve the transient response and robustness of the QCSL with external disturbance. The overall control scheme is designed with a cascade structure to better cope with the underactuated property of the QCSL and the indirect effect of the control force on the load’s velocity through the tensile force on the cable. The simulation results are given to demonstrate the performance of the proposed scheme. Furthermore, actual flight tests were performed on a new experimental QCSL to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.