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ISA Transactions
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Research Article

Position and attitude tracking control for a quadrotor UAV

Jing-Jing Xiong n, En-Hui Zheng
College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou 310018, PR China

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 3 November 2013
Received in revised form
29 December 2013
Accepted 16 January 2014
This paper was recommended for
publication by Jeff Pieper.

A synthesis control method is proposed to perform the position and attitude tracking control of the
dynamical model of a small quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), where the dynamical model is
underactuated, highly-coupled and nonlinear. Firstly, the dynamical model is divided into a fully actuated
subsystem and an underactuated subsystem. Secondly, a controller of the fully actuated subsystem is
designed through a novel robust terminal sliding mode control (TSMC) algorithm, which is utilized to
guarantee all state variables converge to their desired values in short time, the convergence time is so
small that the state variables are acted as time invariants in the underactuated subsystem, and, a
controller of the underactuated subsystem is designed via sliding mode control (SMC), in addition, the
stabilities of the subsystems are demonstrated by Lyapunov theory, respectively. Lastly, in order to
demonstrate the robustness of the proposed control method, the aerodynamic forces and moments and
air drag taken as external disturbances are taken into account, the obtained simulation results show that
the synthesis control method has good performance in terms of position and attitude tracking when
faced with external disturbances.
& 2014 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Quadrotor UAV
Underactuated
Novel robust TSMC
SMC
Synthesis control

1. Introduction
The quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being used
in several typical missions, such as search and rescue missions,
surveillance, inspection, mapping, aerial cinematography and law
enforcement [15].
Considering that the dynamical model of the quadrotor is an
underactuated, highly-coupled and nonlinear system, many control strategies have been developed for a class of similar systems.
Among them, sliding mode control, which has drawn researchers'
much attention, has been a useful and efcient control algorithm
for handling systems with large uncertainties, time varying properties, nonlinearities, and bounded external disturbances [6]. The
approach is based on dening exponentially stable sliding surfaces
as a function of tracking errors and using Lyapunov theory to
guarantee all state trajectories reach these surfaces in nite-time,
and, since these surfaces are asymptotically stable, the state
trajectories slides along these surfaces till they reach the origin
[7]. But, in order to obtain fast tracking error convergence, the
desired poles must be chosen far from the origin on the left half of
s-plane, simultaneously, this will, in turn, increase the gain of the
controller, which is undesirable considering the actuator saturation in practical systems [8,9].

Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: jjxiong357@gmail.com (J.-J. Xiong),
ehzheng@cjlu.edu.cn (E.-H. Zheng).

Replacing the conventional linear sliding surface with the nonlinear terminal sliding surface, the faster tracking error convergence
is to obtain through terminal sliding mode control (TSMC). Terminal
sliding mode has been shown to be effective for providing faster
convergence than the linear hyperplane-based sliding mode around
the equilibrium point [8,10,11]. TSMC was proposed for uncertain
dynamic systems with pure-feedback form in [12]. In [13], a robust
adaptive TSMC technique was developed for n-link rigid robotic
manipulators with uncertain dynamics. A global non-singular TSMC
for rigid manipulators was presented in [14]. Finite-time control of
the robot system was studied through both state feedback and
dynamic output feedback control in [15]. A continuous nite-time
control scheme for rigid robotic manipulators using a new form of
terminal sliding modes was proposed in [16]. For the sake of
achieving nite-time tracking control for the rotor position in the
axial direction of a nonlinear thrust active magnetic bearing system,
the robust non-singular TSMC was given in [17]. However, the
conventional TSMC methods are not the best in the convergence
time, the primary reason is that the convergence speed of the
nonlinear sliding mode is slower than the linear sliding mode when
the state variables are close to the equilibrium points. In [18], a novel
TSMC scheme was developed using a function augmented sliding
hyperplane for the guarantee that the tracking error converges to
zero in nite-time, and was proposed for the uncertain single-input
and single-output (SISO) nonlinear system with unknown external
disturbance. In the most of existing research results, the uncertain
external disturbances are not taken into account these nonlinear
systems. In order to further demonstrate the robustness of novel

0019-0578/$ - see front matter & 2014 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isatra.2014.01.004

Please cite this article as: Xiong J-J, Zheng E-H. Position and attitude tracking control for a quadrotor UAV. ISA Transactions (2014), http:
//dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isatra.2014.01.004i

J.-J. Xiong, E.-H. Zheng / ISA Transactions ()

quadrotor is set up in this work by the body-frame B and the earthframe E as presented in Fig. 1. Let the vector [x,y,z]' denotes the
position of the center of the gravity of the quadrotor and the vector [u,
v,w]' denotes its linear velocity in the earth-frame. The vector [p,q,r]'
represents the quadrotor's angular velocity in the body-frame. m
denotes the total mass. g represents the acceleration of gravity. l
denotes the distance from the center of each rotor to the center of
gravity.
The orientation of the quadrotor is given by the rotation matrix
R:E-B, where R depends on the three Euler angles [,,]0 , which
represent the roll, the pitch and the yaw, respectively. And
A  =2; =2; A  =2; =2; A  ; .
The transformation matrix from [,,]0 to [p,q,r]0 is given by
32 _ 3
2 3 2
1
0
 sin

p
6 7
6 7 60
_ 7
cos
sin cos 7
1
56
4q54
45
0  sin cos cos
r
_

Fig. 1. Quadrotor UAV.

TSMC, the external disturbances are considered into the nonlinear

systems and are applied to the controller design.
In this work, we combine two components in the proposed
control: a novel robust TSMC component for high accuracy
tracking performance in the fully actuated subsystem, and a SMC
component that handles the external disturbances in the underactuated subsystem.
Even though many classical, higher order and extended SMC
strategies, have been developed for the ight controller design for
the quadrotor UAV (see for instance [1923], and the list is not
exhaustive), and, these strategies in the papers [1923] were
utilized to dictate a necessity to compensate for the external
disturbances, in addition, the other control methods, such as
proportionalintegraldifferential (PID) control [24,25], backstepping control [26,27], switching model predictive attitude control
[28], etc., have been proposed for the ight controller design, most
of the aforementioned control strategies have been proposed in
order to make the quadrotor stable in nite-time and the stabilization time of the aircraft may be too long to reect the
performance of them. In addition, the stabilization time is essential signicance for the quadrotor UAV to quickly recover from
some unexpected disturbances. For the sake of decreasing the
time, a synthesis control method based on the novel robust TSMC
and SMC algorithms is applied to the dynamical model of the
quadrotor UAV. The synthesis control method is proposed to
guarantee all system state variables converge to their desired
values in short time. Furthermore, the convergence time of the
state variables are predicted via the equations derived by the novel
robust TSMC, this is demonstrated by the following sections.
The organization of this work is arranged as follows. Section 2
presents the dynamical model of a small quadrotor UAV. The
synthesis control method is detailedly introduced in Section 3. In
Section 4, simulation results are performed to highlight the overall
validity and the effectiveness of the designed controllers. In
Section 5, a discussion, which is based on different synthesis
control schemes, is presented to emphasize the performance of
the proposed synthesis control method in this work, followed by
the concluding remarks in Section 6.

2. Quadrotor model
In order to describe the motion situations of the quadrotor model
clearly, the position coordinate is to choose. The model of the

The dynamical model of the quadrotor can be described by the

following equations [5,24,29]:
8
_
1
x m
cos sin cos sin sin u1  Km1 x
>
>
>
>
_
>
K
y
1
2
>
>
> y m cos sin sin  sin cos u1  m
>
>
_
>
1
>
cos cos u1  g  Km3 z
< z m
2
K4l _
_

_
l
_ Iy Ix Iz IJxr
>
r I x u2  I x
>
>
>
>
K5l _
_
l
>
>
_ _ Iz Iy Ix  IJyr
r I y u3  I y
>
>
>
>
>
_ _ Ix  I y 1 u  K 6 _
:
I 4
I
I
z

where Ki denote the drag coefcients and positive constants;

r 1  2 3  4 ; i ; stand for the angular speed of the
propeller i Ix,Iy,Iz represent the inertias of the quadrotor;Jr denotes
the inertia of the propeller;u1 denotes the total thrust on the body
in the z-axis;u2 and u3 represent the roll and pitch inputs,
respectively;u4 denotes a yawing moment.u1 F 1 F 2 F 3 F 4 ;
u2  F 2 F 4 ; u3  F 1 F 3 ; u4 d  F 1 F 2 F 3 F 4 =b;,
2
where F i bi denote the thrust generated by four rotors and are
considered as the real control inputs to the dynamical system, b
denotes the lift coefcient;d denotes the force to moment scaling
factor.

3. Synthesis control
Compared with the brushless motor, the propeller is very light,
we ignore the moment of inertia caused by the propeller. Eq. (2) is
divided into two parts:
3 2
3
" # 2 u1 cos cos
 Km3 z_
g
z
m
54
5
3
4
1

u4
_ _ Ix  Iy  K 6 _
Iz

8" #
"

>
cos
>
> x u1
>
>
m
>

sin
y
>
<
" # "
>
l=I x
>

>
>
>

>
>
0
:

Iz

sin

#"

Iz

cos sin

 cos
sin
#" # 2 _ I y  Iz K 4 l _ 3
_ Ix  Ix
0
u2
4 _ I z  Ix K 5 l _ 5
l=I y
u3
_ I  I
y

2
4

 Km1 x_
 Km2 y_

3
5
4

where Eq. (3) denotes the fully actuated subsystem (FAS), Eq. (4)
denotes the underactuated subsystem (UAS). For the FAS, a novel
robust TSMC is used to guarantee its state variables converge to
their desired values in short time, then the state variables are
regarded as time invariants, therefore, the UAS gets simplied. For
the UAS, a sliding mode control approach is utilized. The special
synthesis control scheme is introduced in the following sections.

Please cite this article as: Xiong J-J, Zheng E-H. Position and attitude tracking control for a quadrotor UAV. ISA Transactions (2014), http:
//dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isatra.2014.01.004i

J.-J. Xiong, E.-H. Zheng / ISA Transactions ()

Considering the Lyapunov function candidate

3.1. A novel robust TSMC for FAS

Considering the symmetry of a rigid-body quadrotor, therefore,
we get Ix Iy Let x1 z 0 and x2 z_ _ 0 . The fully actuated
subsystem is written by
(
x_ 1 x2 ;
5
x_ 2 f 1 g 1 u1 d1
where f 1  g 00 ; g 1 cos cos =m 0; 0 1=I z ; u1 u1 u4 0
and d1  K 3 z_ =m  K 6 _ =I z 0 :
To develop the tracking control, the sliding manifolds are
dened as [18,30]

6b

In this section, the details about sliding mode control of a

class of underactuated systems are found in [29]. Let
"
#
cos
sin
Q um1
,
and
y1 Q  1 x y0 ; y2 Q  1 x_ y_ 0 ;
sin  cos

!
7b

In accordance with Eq. (5) and the time derivative of s2 and s4, we
have
u1
K3
d m0 =n0
cos cos g z_ 1 s_ 1 1 s1 1 1
dt
m
m

8a
8b

The controllers are designed by

m

z d g 1 s_ 1

m01 m01  n01 =n01

s_ 1
1 0 s1
n1

m =n1

1 s2 1 s2 1



m0 m0  n0 =n0
m =n
u4 I z d 2 s_ 3 2 02 s3 2 2 2 s_ 3 2 s4 2 s4 2 2
n2

9a
9b

where 1,2,1, and 2 are positive,m1, n1, m2, and n2 are positive
odd integers with m1 on1 and m2 on2 :
Under the controllers, the state trajectories reach the areas
(1,2) of the sliding surfaces s2 0 and s4 0 along s_ 2  1 s2 
m =n
1 =n1
01 sm
and s_ 4  2 s4  02 s4 2 2 in nite-time, respectively. The
2
time is dened as
t 01 r

t 02 r

n1

1 n1  m1

ln

1 s1 0n1  m1 =n1 1
1

10a

n2
2 s3 0n2  m2 =n2 2
ln
2 n2  m2
2

10b

m1 =n1
0
j 1;
1 L1 =js2
1
L1 jK 3 z_ =mjmax ; 1 4 0; 1 fjs2 j r L1 = 1 m1 =n1 g
m2 =n2
m =n
0
_
j; 2 L2 =js4 2 2 j 2
2 2  K 6 =I z =js4

y_ 1 y2 ;
y_ 2 f 2 d2 ;
y_ 3 y4 ;
y_ 4 f 3 g 2 u2 d3 :

11

According to Eqs. (9a) and (9b) we can select the appropriate

parameters to guarantee the control law u1 and yaw angle
converge to the desired/reference values in short time.
Thats,u_ 1 0, becomes time invariant, then _ 0, Q is time
invariant matrix and non-singular because u1 is the total thrust
and nonzero to overcome the gravity. As a result

diagl=I x l=I y ; u2 u2 u3 0 ; d3 diag  lK 4 =I x  lK 5 =I y y4

Dene the tracking error equations
8
e1 yd1  y1 ;
>
>
>
>
>
d
>
< e2 e_ 1 y_ 1  y2 ;
d
e3 e_ 2 y 1  f 2 ;
>
>
>


>
:::
>
> e4 e_ 3 yd  f 2 y f 2 f f 2 y
:
1
y 2
y 2
y 4
1

12

where the vector yd1 denotes the desired value vector.

The sliding manifolds are designed as
s c1 e1 c2 e2 c3 e3 e4
where the constants ci 4 0.
By making s_  Msgns  s, we get
h
i9
8
:::0
d f 2
>
>
c1 e2 c2 e3 c3 e4 y1 d  dt
>
y1 y2 >
>
>
>

  1>
=
<
h
i
h
i
f 2
d f 2
d f 2
 dt y f 2  dt y y4
g2
u2
2
3
>
>
y3
>
>
>
>
>
>
;
:  f 2 f 3 d3 Msgns s
y

13

14

where

where

_ _ 0 . The underactuated subsystem is written in

y3 0 ; y4
a cascaded form

f 2 cos sin sin 0 ; d2 Q  1 diagK 1 =m K 2 =mQ y2 ; f 3 0; g 2

1
K6
d m0 =n0
s_ 4 d  u4 _ 2 s_ 3 2 s3 2 2
Iz
dt
Iz

cos

Considering that (m1 n1) is positive even integer, thats,

V_ 1 r 0: The state trajectories of the subsystem converge to the
desired equilibrium points in nite-time. Therefore, the subsystem
is asymptotically stable.
3.2. A SMC approach for UAS

n02
2 s3 0n2  m2 =n2 2
ln
t s3
0
0
2 n2  m2
2

cos

m1 n1 =n1

 1 s2 2  01 s2

6a

where s1 zd z; s3 d  , Zd and d are the desired values of

state variables Z and , respectively. In addition, the coefcients
1 ; 2 ; 1 ; 2 are positive, m01 ; m02 ; n01 ; n02 are positive odd integers
with m01 o n01 and m02 o n02 .
Let s2 0 and s4 0. The convergence time is calculated as
follows:
!
0
0
0
n01
1 s1 0n1  m1 =n1 1
ln
t s1
7a
1 n01  m01
1

u1

Invoking Eqs. (8a) and (9a) the time derivative of V1 is derived

m =n
V_ 1 s2 s_ 2 s2  1 s2  1 s2 1 1 K 3 z_ =m

s4 s_ 3 2 s3 2 s3 m2 =n2

V 1 s22 =2

s2 s_ 1 1 s1 1 s1 m1 =n1

s_ 2 z d 

m1 =n1
_
j;
1  K 3 z=m=js2

L2 jK 6 _ =I z jmax ; 2 4 0; 2 fjs4 j r L2 =2 m2 =n2 g

Proof 1. In order to illustrate the subsystem is stable, here, we
only choose the state variable z as an example and Lyapunov
theory is applied.

M c2 d2 c3 2 d2 jjE1 jj2 3 d4 jjyjj2 ;

1 Z f 2 =y1 ; 2 Z f 2 =y2 ; 3 Zf 2 =y3 ;

E1 e1 e2 e3 0 ; y y1 y2 y3 y4 0 and 4 0;

4 0; jjd2 jj o d2 jjE1 jj2 ; d2 maxK 1 =mK 2 =m

jjd3 jj o d4 jjyjj2 ; d4 maxlK 4 =I x lK 5 =I y :


f 2
According
cos cos cos 0;
toy3
 sin2 sin
and 0 o f 2 =y3 cos cos o 2, and , therefore, f 2 =
y3 is invertible.

Please cite this article as: Xiong J-J, Zheng E-H. Position and attitude tracking control for a quadrotor UAV. ISA Transactions (2014), http:
//dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isatra.2014.01.004i

J.-J. Xiong, E.-H. Zheng / ISA Transactions ()

13

reference
real

12

-2

u1 ( m/s 2 )

x(m)

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

11

9
8

y(m)

X: 39.54
Y: 9.801

10

10

15

20

25
30
Time ( s )

35

40

45

50

Fig. 4. The controller u1, PID control and SMC.

-1

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

z(m)

Table 1
Quadrotor model parameters.

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Time ( s )
Fig. 2. The positions (x,y,z), PID control and SMC.

0.025

reference

( rad )

real

Value

Units

m
Ix Iy
Iz
K1 K2 K3
K4 K5 K6
l
Jr
b
d
g

2.0
1.25
2.2
0.01
0.012
0.20
1
2
5
9.8

kg
Ns2/rad
Ns2/rad
Ns/m
Ns/m
m
Ns2/rad
Ns2
N ms2
m/s2

-0.025

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

( rad )

0.06

-0.06

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

( rad )

Variable

X: 25.48
Y: 0.5003

0.5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Table 2
Controller parameters.
Variable

Value

Variable

Value

1
1
m01
n01
m1
n1
1
1

1
1
5
7
1
3
10

2
2
m02
n02
m2
n2
2
2

3
1
5
7
1
3
10

1
c1
c3

m =n1

L1 =js2 1
0.1
20
8
0.1
0

j 1

2
c2

1
3

m =n2

L2 =js4 2
0.1
22
1
0
2

j 2

Time ( s )
Fig. 3. The angles (,,), PID control and SMC.

Proof 2. The stability of the subsystem is illustrated by Lyapunov

theory as follows.
Consider the Lyapunov function candidate:
1
V sT s
2
Invoking Eqs. (13) and (14), the time derivative of V is
V_ sT s_ sT c1 e_ 1 c2 e_ 2 c3 e_ 3 e_ 4 


f
f
sT  Msgns c2 d2 c3 2 d2 2 d3
y2
y3
o  sT s  M c2 d2 c3 2 d2 jjE1 jj2  3 d4 jjxjj2 jjsjj1
 sT s  jjsjj1 r 0:

Therefore, under the controllers, the subsystem state trajectories can reach, and, thereafter, stay on the manifold S 0 in
nite-time.

4. Simulation results and analysis

In this section, the dynamical model of the quadrotor UAV in
Eq. (2) is used to test the validity and efciency of the proposed
synthesis control scheme when faced with external disturbances.
The simulations of typical position and attitude tracking are
performed on Matlab 7.1.0.246/Simulink, which is equipped with
a computer comprising of a DUO E7200 2.53 GHz CPU with 2 GB of
RAM and a 100 GB solid state disk drive. Moreover, the performance of the synthesis control is demonstrated through the
comparison with the control method in [29], which used a rate
bounded PID controller and a sliding mode controller for the fully
actuated subsystem, and, a SMC approach for the underactuated
subsystem.
4.1. PID control and SMC
In this section, more details of the PID control and SMC method
for a quadrotor UAV has been introduced, meanwhile, the simulation results and analysis, which verify the effectiveness of the
synthesis control scheme, can be found in [29]. The approximate

Please cite this article as: Xiong J-J, Zheng E-H. Position and attitude tracking control for a quadrotor UAV. ISA Transactions (2014), http:
//dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isatra.2014.01.004i

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reference
real

1
X: 4.977
Y: 0.9909

10

15

20

25

30

35

0.45
u ( m/s )

x(m)

v ( m/s )

y(m)

X: 4.977
Y: 0.9946

10

15

20

25

30

35

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

-0.45

40

1.4
w ( m/s )

z(m)

0.45

1
X: 1.779
Y: 0.9932

-0.45

40

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

-1.4

Time ( s )

Time ( s )

Fig. 5. The positions (x,y,z), novel robust TSMC and SMC.

( rad )

0.05

Fig. 7. The linear velocities (u,v,w), novel robust TSMC and SMC.

reference
real

-0.05

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

30

35

40

( rad )

0.05

-0.05
1

( rad )

X: 21.01
Y: 0.5002

0.5
X: 1.163
Y: 0.4992

10

15

20

25

Time ( s )
Fig. 6. The angles (,,), novel robust TSMC and SMC.

simulation tests are shown in Figs. 24, however, the research

objects are slightly changed to make obvious comparisons with
the following simulation tests.
4.2. Novel robust TSMC and SMC
In this section, in order to justify the effectiveness of the proposed synthesis control method, the position and attitude tracking
of the quadrotor have been performed.
The initial position and angle values of the quadrotor for the
simulation tests are [0, 0, 0]m and [0, 0, 0]rad. In addition, the
quadrotor's model variables are listed in Table 1.
The desired/reference position and angle values are used in
simulation tests: xd 1 m, yd 1 m, Zd 1 m, d d 0 rad, d /
6.28 rad. Besides, The controller parameters are listed in Table 2.
The simulation results are shown in Figs. 510.
The overall control scheme managed to effectively hold the
quadrotor's horizontal position and attitude in nite-time, as
shown in Figs. 5 and 6. The nite-time convergence of the state
variables z and is clearly faster than the other state variables,
therefore, it is safe to consider the pitch angle as time invariant
after 1.163 s. In addition, the altitude z reaches its reference value

under the controller u1 after 1.779 s, thus, it is reliable to consider

the controller u1 as time invariant after 1.779 s. These verify the
matrix Q is time invariant in short nite-time. The other state
variables reach their desired values after about 5 s. Even though
the smooth curves of the state variables and show that they
have certain oscillation amplitudes, the amplitudes are varying
from  0.05 rad and 0.05 rad. According to the initial conditions,
parameters and desired/reference values, the convergence time of
the state variables z and is essentially consistent with the values
calculated by invoking Eqs. (7a) and (7b) and . This demonstrates
the effectiveness of the proposed synthesis control scheme.
The linear and angular velocities, displayed in Figs. 7 and 8,
respectively, exhibit the same behavior as the corresponding
positions and angles. Indeed, these state variables are driven to
their steady states as expected. This, once again, demonstrates the
effectiveness of the synthesis control scheme.
The behavior of the sliding variables (s2,s4 and s), shown in
Fig. 9, follows the expectations as all the variables converge to
their sliding surfaces. Furthermore, as desired, the nite-time
convergence of s2 and s4 is obviously faster than the nite-time
convergence of s. Similarly, this exhibits the same behavior as
shown in Figs. 5 and 6.
Seen from Fig. 10, it can be found that the four control input
variables converge to their steady state values (19.66,0,0,0) after
several seconds, respectively. Besides, u1 a 0, this also veries the
matrix Q is time invariant in short nite-time. In spite of the high
initial values, u1 and u4 are almost no oscillation amplitudes. This
also denotes that the time derivative of u1 trends to zero. Thus,
compared with the equations in [29], Eq. (11) is greatly simplied.
Finally, the robustness of the proposed overall control method
is demonstrated by considering the aerodynamic forces and
moments and air drag taken as the external disturbances into
the dynamical model of the quadrotor. Furthermore, these disturbance terms are also applied to the controller design. As a
result, the effects of these disturbance terms are invisible on all the
state variables, sliding variables, and controllers.

5. Discussion
The extensive simulation tests have been performed to evaluate
the different synthesis control schemes which are based on
position and attitude tracking of the quadrotor UAV. It can be

Please cite this article as: Xiong J-J, Zheng E-H. Position and attitude tracking control for a quadrotor UAV. ISA Transactions (2014), http:
//dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isatra.2014.01.004i

J.-J. Xiong, E.-H. Zheng / ISA Transactions ()

40

u1 ( N )

p ( rad/s )

0.15

-0.15

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

X: 17.86
Y: 19.66

20
10

0.1

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

10
0

-0.1

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

u2 ( N )

q ( rad/s )

30

-10
0

-1.2

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Time ( s )

u3 ( N )

r ( rad/s )

1.2

Fig. 8. The angular velocities (p,q,r), novel robust TSMC and SMC.

-3
10

u4 ( N )

s2

0
X: 0.8018
Y: 0.000684

-2

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

-10

Time ( s )

1.2

s4

Fig. 10. The controllers (u1,u2,u3,u4), novel robust TSMC and SMC.
0
X: 1.338
Y: -0.0002129

-1.2

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

20

s(1)
s(2)
0

-20

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

variables z and is essentially consistent with the theoretically

calculated values. (c) Compared to other variables, the pitch angle
and the controller u1 become time invariants in short time.
(d) The four control input variables converge to their steady values
in nite-time,u1 and u4 are almost no oscillation amplitudes. All
above, the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed synthesis
control method have been demonstrated, and, the presented
simulation results are promising at the position and attitude
tracking control for the aircraft.

Time ( s )
Fig. 9. The sliding variables (s2,s4,s), novel robust TSMC and SMC.

clearly seen that while all the state variables converge to their
reference values as desired in nite-time, the convergence time is
obviously different. It was shown that the synthesis control
method based on the novel robust TSMC and SMC is a more
reliable and effective approach to perform the tracking control for
the quadrotor UAV.

6. Conclusion
This work studies the position and attitude tracking control of a
small quadrotor UAV using the proposed control method based on
the aforementioned control algorithms. In order to further test the
performances of the designed controllers, the dynamical model of
the quadrotor along with the controllers is simulated on Matlab/
Simulink. The main conclusions are summarized as follows. (a) The
six degrees of freedom converge to their desired/reference values
in nite-time, respectively. (b) The convergence time of the state

Acknowledgment
This work was partially supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (60905034).
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