Nested saturation control of multiple vector integrators and its application to motion control of UAVs

This paper presents two nested input saturation control schemes for a special class of multiple vector integrators with bounded additive disturbances. The considered systems originate from the motion control of rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The first scheme is based on a feedforward form, which requires state transformation and can be applied to stabilize arbitrary order vector integrator systems. The second scheme is constructed with original state variables using a new approach, applied here to double vector integrator systems. The capability of handling external disturbance using the two schemes is also analyzed. The two schemes are applied to design motion controllers for rotary-wing UAVs and simulation results are provided to show the performances of two controllers.