Finite-Time Flight Control of a Quad-Copter UAV Using Integral Terminal Super-Twisting

This work investigates the problem of robust finite-time flight control of uncertain quad-copter unmanned aerial vehicle systems. As a solution to this problem, a new integral nonsingular terminal higher-order sliding mode is proposed. The algorithm used is a super-twisting incorporating a combination of linear and nonlinear regulating terms. The proposed integral non-singular terminal super-twisting is robust against matched and mismatched uncertainties, ensures accurate trajectory tracking and finite-time convergence. Moreover, the proposed algorithm is attractive since it bypasses the singularity problem in terminal sliding mode and it reduces the chattering problem. To evaluate the efficiency of the developed approach, numerous scenarios are considered in numerical simulations using a perturbed quadcopter model. Finally, practical work is performed to control the attitude on a real quad-copter system. The results obtained in both simulation and real-time show good performances in terms of tracking and stabilization.