Adaptive H^|^infin; Tracking Control for Quad-rotor Helicopters Based on Input-output Linearization

Abstract

This paper considers the problem of controlling both the position and the attitude of a quad-rotor helicopter. The quad-rotor helicopter is described by a set of nonlinear equations and some parameters of the dynamics are subjected to uncertainties. This paper proposes a new input-output linearization method based on an adaptive law, and presents a new adaptive tracking controller with on-line parameter estimation to make the tracking error zero asymptotically for the position and the yaw angle. The design problem of the controller is reduced to that of a linear system, and the design method is simple and straightforward. Moreover, a disturbance sensitivity reduction problem is also solved by applying a standard H-infinity control method. A numerical simulation is performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.