Flight control of a flying-wing UAV based on active disturbance rejection control

Active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) technique was applied for attitude and trajectory control of the flying-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Considering the characteristic of static instability in longitudinal and directional, a nonlinear ADRC controller was designed for the flying-wing UAV. After tuning the parameters, altitude command with step change, and gust disturbance were given when it was in simulation at the state of a straight and level path flight. The results showed the steady-state error of altitude reduced by 0.0235m, and the setting time of altitude reduced by 8.2s. To some extent, it is because this controller can estimate and compensate for the disturbance. Comparing with proportion-integration and differentiation (PID) controller, the ADRC controller we designed can solve the problem of oscillations, and the oscillations are often generated by step change of state variable or input command. Relevant results indicate that ADRC controller can not only meet the control accuracy requirement, but also satisfy the requirement of the rapid response, robustness and insensitivity to perturbations.