Trajectory tracking control design with command-filtered compensation for a quadrotor

The design of a flight control system capable of not only stabilising attitude but also tracking a trajectory accurately for an under-actuated quadrotor aircraft is quite challenging. This study constructs the relationship between the attitude and linear acceleration of a small quadrotor unmanned aircraft and proposes a trajectory tracking control design algorithm, based on the relationship, using a new command-filtered backstepping technique to stabilise the attitude and a linear tracking differentiator to eliminate the classical inner/outer-loop structure. Finally, the validity and the effectiveness of this algorithm are demonstrated by various numerical simulations under different conditions.