Trajectory tracking control of quadrotor UAV

Quadrotor is an attractive flying subject in aerospace control fields since it has a simple structure, but complex dynamics. Control engineers have developed various algorithms to control this subtle vehicle. However, it is still very difficult to control quadrotor because of its high nonlinearities. In this paper, the new controller is proposed for the guidance and control of the quadrotor. An attitude controller and position controller are designed based on feedback linearization. In this way, the under-actuated system is divided into two fully-actuated subsystems. Furthermore, 1-2-3 type Euler angles are used so that the quadrotor position can be controlled freely regardless of the yaw angle. As a result, the quadrotor system can be exactly linearized reflecting most of the information that original dynamics has. To show the performance of this controller, numerical simulation is performed for the position tracking.