Adaptive backstepping control for a convertible UAV

This paper focuses on a convertible unmanned aerial vehicle (CUAV) whose main characteristics is to perform hover flight for launch or recovery, and horizontal mode during cruise. The dynamic model is obtained using the Newton-Euler approach and it considers the aerodynamic effects. An adaptive backstepping control, based on quaternions, is proposed for the complete operation of the CUAV. The closed-loop system guarantees the stability under a singularity-free representation. Numerical simulations show the performance of the aerial vehicle and the stabilization of the closed-loop system, and finally the avionics of the CUAV is described.