Extended State Observer-based Robust Pitch Autopilot Design for Small UAV

Extended state observer-based controller is designed for a small fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) pitch autopilot. The designed autopilot has robust characteristics with respect to external disturbance and model uncertainty. The objective of the longitudinal autopilot is to control the speed and altitude of an UAV. Feedback linearization is employed to use extended state observer which can be applied only to integral-chain system, and the performance of the designed observer is improved by using available model information. Numerical simulation is performed to demonstrate the performance of the designed controller.