CLF-Based Control for Aerial Manipulation Using Multirotor UAVs

This paper presents the trajectory-tracking control of a Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) rotorcraft endowing a two Degrees of Freedom (DoFs) manipulator arm. The research considers endogenous (parametric) and exogenous (external disturbances) uncertainties as lumped disturbance, which is estimated via an Extended-State Observer (ESO). A feedback controller is synthesized through the Control Lyapunov Function (CLF) aided by feedforward terms composed of the ESO estimates. The compound system, the rotorcraft, and the manipulator dynamics are mathematically modeled based on the energy-based Euler-Lagrange (EL) formalism. The system’s stability is analyzed within the Input-State Stability (ISS) framework, guaranteeing closed-loop stability for the overall design (controller-ESO-UAV+arm). Results from an extensive simulation stage prove the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.