RMPC-Based Visual Servoing for Trajectory Tracking of Quadrotor UAVs with Visibility Constraints

Abstract

Dear Editor, This letter deals with the tracking problem of quadrotors subject to external disturbances and visibility constraints by designing a robust model predictive control (RMPC) scheme. According to the image-based visual servoing (IBVS) method, a virtual camera is constructed to express image moments of the tracking target. Furthermore, we design time-varying visibility constraints to cater to UAV attitudes in the RMPC optimization problem so that the tracking target always stays within the field of view (FoV) of the aerial camera. Moreover, the RMPC algorithm is proved to be recursively feasible, and the closed-loop system is stable. Finally, numerical experiments verify the efficacy of the proposed method.