PID switching control for a highway estimation and tracking applied on a convertible mini-UAV

This paper reports current work on development and navigation control of an experimental prototype of a new tilt-rotor convertible aircraft (Quad-plane Mini Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). The goal of the work consists of estimating and tracking a road using a vision system, without any previous knowledge of the road, as well as developing an efficient controller for treat with situations when the road is not detected by the vision sensor. For dealing with this situation, we propose a switching control strategy applied in two operational regions: road detected and no road detected. The exponential stability is proved for the subsystem formed by the lateral position taking into account the switching boundaries between the operational regions. The control law is validated in the proposed platform, showing the expected behavior during autonomous navigation.