Robust Quaternion-Based Nonlinear Output Feedback Control of a Quadrotor Hover System

A robust nonlinear output feedback control method is presented, which achieves three degree of freedom (3-DOF) attitude control of a hover system test bed. The proposed control method formally incorporates the practical limitations in the voltage control inputs to the control actuators (i.e., the quadrotor propellers). In addition, the control law is designed to compensate for uncertainty in the hover system dynamic model, including input-multiplicative parametric uncertainty resulting from uncertain drag and friction coefficients in the propellers' dynamic model. To reduce the computational requirement in the closed-loop system, constant feedforward estimates of the input-multiplicative uncertainty are utilized in lieu of adaptive parameter estimates. Eschewing the high-gain feedback requirement that is characteristic of standard sliding mode observer methods, the proposed control method utilizes a bank of dynamic filters, which operates as a velocity estimator in the closed-loop system. A rigorous error system development and Lyapunov-based stability analysis are presented to prove that the proposed output feedback control law achieves asymptotic 3-DOF attitude control in the presence of parametric input uncertainty and unmodeled dynamics. Experimental results are provided to demonstrate the performance of the attitude control method using the Quanser 3-DOF hover system test bed.