Observer based sliding mode control strategy for vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft system

In this paper, a second order sliding mode (SOSM) controller with asymptotic convergence is proposed for stabilizing a vertical take-off and landing aircraft (VTOL) system affected by both matched and mismatched types of uncertainties. The proposed controller uses an adaptive gain tuning mechanism to design the sliding surface. Experimental results obtained by applying the adaptive SOSM to a laboratory model of VTOL system demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.