Geometric tracking control of a quadrotor UAV on SE(3)

This paper provides new results for the tracking control of a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The UAV has four input degrees of freedom, namely the magnitudes of the four rotor thrusts, that are used to control the six translational and rotational degrees of freedom, and to achieve asymptotic tracking of four outputs, namely, three position variables for the vehicle center of mass and the direction of one vehicle body-fixed axis. A globally defined model of the quadrotor UAV rigid body dynamics is introduced as a basis for the analysis. A nonlinear tracking controller is developed on the special Euclidean group SE(3) and it is shown to have desirable closed loop properties that are almost global. Several numerical examples, including an example in which the quadrotor recovers from being initially upside down, illustrate the versatility of the controller.

I. Introduction

A quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) consists of two pairs of counter-rotating rotors and propellers, located at the vertices of a square frame. It is capable of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), but it does not require complex mechanical linkages, such as swash plates or teeter hinges, that commonly appear in typical helicopters. Due to its simple mechanical structure, it has been envisaged for various applications such as surveillance or mobile sensor networks as well as for educational purposes. There are several university-level projects [1], [2], [3], [4], and commercial products [5], [6], [7] related to the development and application of quadrotor UAVs.