Rotorcraft control and trajectory generation for target tracking

Abstract

The future of flight is autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles. By supporting or replacing UAV operators, control systems become key for increasing UAV autonomy. This paper presents a novel controller and trajectory generator module for an unmanned rotorcraft, with the goal of tracking a moving ground target using sensor measurements and limited or no operator input. A backstepping control scheme is chosen to guarantee stability and minimize the number of operating modes. We implement a trajectory generator for the rotorcarft to seek and orbit around a moving ground target. The applicability of the combined controller-trajectory generator module is verified through numerical simulations.