Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Immersion and Invariance-based Sliding Mode Attitude Control of Tilt Tri-rotor UAV in Helicopter Mode

  • Regular Papers
  • Control Theory and Applications
  • Published:
International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an immersion and invariance-based sliding mode controller for a tilt tri-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle subjects to parameter perturbation, unmodeled dynamics, and external disturbances. The control scheme is divided into three parts, including the disturbance observer, the attitude controller, and the control allocation. Firstly, to alleviate the chattering and improve the robustness for attitude control, the observer using immersion and invariance theory is developed to estimate the disturbance. Note that the observer can relax the requirement of disturbance upper bound and guarantee the convergence of the estimation error. Secondly, to improve the dynamic response capability, a sliding mode attitude controller with an adaptive switch function is designed based on the disturbance observer. Thirdly, a hierarchical control allocation algorithm is proposed. The performance improvement is illustrated by comparing with other sliding mode controllers. Simulations and flight experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed control scheme.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Z. Liu, Y. He, L. Yang, and J. Han, “Control techniques of tilt rotor unmanned aerial vehicle systems: A review,” Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, vol. 30, no. 11, pp. 135–148, February 2017.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Jr. T. Parham, D. Popelka, D. G. Miller, and A. T. Froebel, “V-22 pilot-in-the-loop aeroelastic stability analysis,” Proc. of American Helicopter Society 47th Annual Forum, pp. 1307–1319, May 1991.

  3. C. Rago, R. Prasanth, R. K. Mehra, and R. Fortenbaugh, “Failure detection and identification and fault tolerant control using the IMM-KF with applications to the Eagle-Eye UAV,” Proc. of the 37th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, vol. 4, pp. 4208–4213, December 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  4. S. Park, J. Bae, Y. Kim, and S. Kim, “Fault tolerant flight control system for the tilt-rotor UAV,” Journal of the Franklin Institute, vol. 350, no. 9, pp. 2535–2559, November 2013.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  5. C. S. Yoo, S. D. Ryu, B. J. Park, Y. S. Kang, and S. B. Jung, “Actuator controller based on fuzzy sliding mode control of tilt rotor unmanned aerial vehicle,” International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 1257–1265, November 2014.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. G. Flores, I. Lugo, and R. Lozano, “6-DOF hovering controller design of the quad tiltrotor aircraft: Simulations and experiments,” Proc. of the 53th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 6123–6128, December 2014.

  7. X. Wang and L. Cai, “Mathematical modeling and control of a tilt-rotor aircraft,” Aerospace Science and Technology, vol. 47, no. 12, pp. 473–492, December 2015.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. N. Liu, Z. Cai, J. Zhao, and Y. Wang, “Predictor-based model reference adaptive roll and yaw control of a quadtiltrotor UAV,” Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 282–295, January 2020.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. H. Totoki, Y. Ochi, M. Sato, and K. Muraoka, “Design and testing of a low-order flight control system for quad-tiltwing UAV,” Journal of Guidance Control and Dynamics, vol. 39, no. 10, pp. 2426–2433, October 2016.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. M. Sato and K. Muraoka, “Flight controller design and demonstration of quad-tilt-wing unmanned aerial vehicle,” Journal of Guidance Control and Dynamics, vol. 38, no. 6, pp. 1–12, October 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  11. L. Zivan, A. Wolff, G. Dekel, and Y. Efraty, “IAI Mini Panther-an Innovative VTOL UAV design,” Proc. of the 54th Israel Annual Conference on Aerospace Sciences, pp. 1688–1701, February 2014.

  12. Q. Hu, G. Niu, and C. Wang, “Spacecraft attitude faulttolerant control based on iterative learning observer and control allocation,” Aerospace Science and Technology, vol. 75, pp. 245–253, February 2018.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Y. Kang, N. Kim, B. S. Kim, and M. J. Tahk, “Autonomous waypoint guidance for tilt-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle that has nacelle-fixed auxiliary wings,” Proc. of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G: Journal of Aerospace Engineering, vol. 228, no. 14, pp. 2695–2717, March 2014.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. C. Papachristos, K. Alexis, and A. Tzes, “Dual-authority thrust-vectoring of a tri-tiltrotor employing model predictive control,” Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, vol. 81, no. 3–4, pp. 471–504, March 2016.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. K. Alexis, C. Papachristos, R. Siegwart, and A. Tzes, “Robust model predictive flight control of unmanned rotor-crafts,” Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, vol. 81, no. 3–4, pp. 443–469, March 2016.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. A. Prach and E. Kayacan, “An MPC-based position controller for a tilt-rotor tricopter VTOL UAV,” Optimal Control Applications and Methods, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 343–356, January 2018.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. H. Ríos, R. Falcón, O. A. González, and A. Dzul, “Continuous sliding-mode control strategies for quadrotor robust tracking: Real-time application,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, vol. 66, no. 2, pp. 1264–1272, April 2018.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Y. Zou, “Nonlinear robust adaptive hierarchical sliding mode control approach for quadrotors,” International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 925–941, March 2017.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  19. J. Pan, W. Li, and H. Zhang, “Control algorithms of magnetic suspension systems based on the improved double exponential reaching law of sliding mode control,” International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems, vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 2878–2887, December 2018.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. H. Du, J. Zhang, D. Wu, W. Zhu, H. Li, and Z. Chu, “Fixed-time attitude stabilization for a rigid spacecraft,” ISA Transactions, vol. 98, pp. 263–270, March 2020.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. S. Ding, K. Mei, and S. Li, “A new second-order sliding mode and its application to nonlinear constrained systems,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 64, no. 6, pp. 2545–2552, August 2018.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  22. A. Astolfi, and R. Ortega, “Immersion and invariance: A new tool for stabilization and adaptive control of nonlinear systems,” IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 590–606, April 2003.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  23. Y. Zou and Z. Meng, “Immersion and invariance-based adaptive controller for quadrotor systems,” IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, vol. 49, no. 11, pp. 2288–2297, January 2018.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. J. Y. Lau, W. Liang, and K. K. Tan, “Adaptive sliding mode enhanced disturbance observer-based control of surgical device,” ISA Transactions, vol. 90, pp. 178–188, July 2019.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Y. Yang and Y. Yan, “Neural network approximation-based nonsingular terminal sliding mode control for trajectory tracking of robotic airships,” Aerospace Science and Technology, vol. 54, pp. 192–197, July 2016.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. D. F. Zhang, S. P. Zhang, Z. Q. Wang, and B. C. Lu, “Dynamic control allocation algorithm for a class of distributed control systems,” International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 259–270, February 2020.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. T. A. Johansen, and T. I. Fossen, “Control allocation—a survey,” Automatica, vol. 49, no. 5, pp. 1087–1103, May 2013.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  28. Y. Seo and Y. Kim, “Modeling and attitude control of tri-tilt ducted fan vehicle,” Proc. of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, January 2016.

  29. G. Di Francesco, M. Mattei, and E. D’Amato, “Incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion and control allocation for a tilt rotor UAV,” Proc. of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, January 2014.

  30. J. Zhang, P. Bhardwaj, S. A. Raab, S. Saboo, and F. Holzapfel, “Control allocation framework for a tilt-rotor vertical take-off and landing transition aircraft configuration,” Proc. of the 2018 Applied Aerodynamics Conference, June 2018.

  31. J. Hu, and H. Zhang, “Immersion and invariance based command-filtered adaptive backstepping control of VTOL vehicles,” Automatica, vol. 49, no. 7, pp. 2160–2167, July 2013.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  32. L. Yu, D. Zhang, J. Zhang, and C. Pan, “Modeling and attitude control of a tilt tri-rotor UAV,” Proc. of the 36th Chinese Control Conference, pp. 1103–1108, July 2017.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Intelligence Science and Technology, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China

    Li Yu, Guang He, Shulong Zhao, Xiangke Wang & Lincheng Shen

Authors
  1. Li Yu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Guang He
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Shulong Zhao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Xiangke Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Lincheng Shen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Guang He.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Recommended by Associate Editor Seungkeun Kim under the direction of Editor Chan Gook Park. This work is supported in part by the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province under grant 2019JJ50717, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant 61973309.

Li Yu received his B.S. degree from Shandong University, China, in 2015 and M.S. degree from the National University of Defense Technology, China, in 2017, where he is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree. His research interests include robust control, adaptive control, and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Guang He received his B.S. degree from Northeastern University, China, in 2008, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from National University of Defense Technology, China, in 2010 and 2016, respectively. He is currently a lecturer at the National University of Defense Technology. His research interests include unmanned aerial vehicles and nonlinear control.

Shulong Zhao received his B.S. degree from Beihang University, China, in 2011, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from National University of Defense Technology, China, in 2013 and 2017, respectively. He is currently a lecturer at the National University of Defense Technology. His research interests include data-driven control and curved path following of UAV.

Xiangke Wang received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from National University of Defense Technology, China, in 2004, 2006, and 2012, respectively. From 2012, he is with the College of Intelligence Science and Technology, National University of Defense Technology, China, as a full professor. His research interests include multi-agent systems, nonlinear control, and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Lincheng Shen received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in automatic control from the National University of Defense Technology, China, in 1986, 1989, and 1994, respectively. In 1989, he joined the Department of Automatic Control, NUDT, where he is currently a full professor. He has been serving as an Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Bionic Engineering since 2007. His research interests include unmanned aerial vehicles, swarm robotics, and artificial intelligence.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Yu, L., He, G., Zhao, S. et al. Immersion and Invariance-based Sliding Mode Attitude Control of Tilt Tri-rotor UAV in Helicopter Mode. Int. J. Control Autom. Syst. 19, 722–735 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-020-0110-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-020-0110-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation