Robustness Studies on Quadrotor Control

Abstract

A new control method (B control) that guarantees fast and robust control for unstable invertible plants [1] has been recently proposed and tested [2], [3]. This method enables getting a time response with minimal overshoot and settling time equal to rise time while keeping good stability margins. Demonstration of this control method has been published in [4]. In the present work, we apply this control method to a non-linear model of a quadcopter. The fastest orientation dynamic of the drone is controlled separately from the translation dynamic which is slower. The performance of this B controller is compared to a μ-synthesis and PID controller. Matlab simulations show slightly better performances for B control compared to μ-synthesis in the time domain. However, μ-synthesis gives better results for steady flight in the presence of perturbations when compared to B controller, although it involves higher motor velocities. PID performance in the time domain is less than satisfactory as it evolves excessive gains.