Comparative controller design of an aerial robot

Flying capability opens novel opportunities in robotic applications, such as search and rescue, surveillance navigations and mapping operations. In this article, considering an aerial robot, i.e. an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a few comparable controllers are designed to manage the system performance during various maneuvers. After introducing a nonlinear dynamics model of the system, an adaptive controller is proposed based on feedback linearization approach and using Lyapunov design method. Next, an optimal controller is designed to compare its performance with the designed adaptive controller. Stability analysis for the designed adaptation law is also studied and discussed. To evaluate the performance of designed controllers for a given aerial robot, a comprehensive simulation program is developed. It is shown that tracking errors for the state variables exponentially converge to zero, even in the presence of parameters uncertainty. In particular, it is shown that the proposed adaptive controller, based on its feedback linearization approach and Lyapunov stabilized characteristics, is able to perform perfect path tracking maneuvers, compared to the optimal controller that contains minor errors due to its feed-forward nature.