2014 IEEE 10th International Colloquium on Signal Processing & its Applications (CSPA2014), 7 - 9 Mac.

2014, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Yaw, Pitch and Roll Controller Design for

Fixed-wing UAV under uncertainty and
perturbed Condition
Faizan. A. Warsi, D.Hazry, S. Faiz Ahmed, M. Kamran Joyo, M. Hassan Tanveer, H. Kamarudin, Zuradzman M.
Razlan
Centre of Excellence for Unmanned Aerial System (COEUAS) Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP)
University Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP)
Kangar, Perlis, Malaysia
faizan.coeuas@yahoo.com, hazry@unimap.edu.my, syedfaiz@unimap.edu.my
dynamics. These six Degree Of Freedom (DOF), can be
further divided into two movements, the three degrees are
belongs to longitude and latitude angular movement (Yaw,
Pitch, Roll) and remaining three belongs to longitude and
latitude directional movement (X, Y, Z). To control these
movements, four actuators inputs are used which are thruster,
aileron, elevator and rudder. Thrust is compulsory input for
every movement while other three can use one at a time or
combination for changing direction and angular movement as
per desired movement. In this article only three degree of
freedom are taken in account (Yaw, Pitch, Roll) and for every
movement one input is considered as control variable while
other as constant. For Yaw angle movement rudder is used as
control input, while elevator is used for Pitch angle controlling
and Roll angle can be controlled via aileron deflection.
Many researchers work on UAV and developed control
algorithms to improve the flight stability of Fixed-wing UAV.
PID control technique was used to control the heading angle of
UAV [1]. PID was implemented for attitude stability of fixed
wing UAV [2]. State-Dependent Riccati Equation (SDRE)
technique was implemented on a small fixed wing UAV [3].
Sliding mode controller was used in Small fix wind UAV to
work under heavy wind gust and external disturbance
condition. [4]. Fuzzy logic controller was implemented on
UAV by Yang Chen to work under windy condition while
following predefine path [5]. This paper presents the modeling
of a fixed wing UAV and a technique based on PID controller
for angular stabilization under perturbed conditions. The
proposed algorithm is simulated on (MATLAB). In a real-time
system, sensors and measurement devices provide noisy data.
A filter is introduced into the system in order to reject noise.
The proposed filter is an Extended Kalman filter which could
be a decent filter for this system. Due to the non-linearity of
the system a simple Kalman filter cannot be utilized. The
extended version of the Kalman filter is EKF which is used to
linearize the system States.

Abstract Now a days Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)

systems are frequently used in many commercial applications.
This makes UAV application as one of the hottest topic among
the researchers. The most critical task for the researchers
working on UAV is its proper and stable flight controlling under
uncertainty and perturbed condition. In fixed wing UAV system
altitude and attitude angles (Yaw, Pitch, Roll) play a significant
role for flight stabilization. This paper presents a control
algorithm for fixed-wing UAV longitude and latitude angles
(Yaw, Pitch and Roll) controlling. This control algorithm is based
on Proportional Integral Derivate (PID) conjunction with
Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). It is also describes that how an
unstable system become stable after applying proposed control
technique. The proposed control method is simulated on fixedwing UAV mathematical model under perturbed and
unperturbed conditions using MATLAB platform. The
Simulation results shows that the proposed controller performed
well and maintains the stability of an airplane and holds desired
angle values under uncertainties and perturbed conditions.
Keywords UAV, EKF, PID, stability, noise & disturbance
rejection, longitudinal, lateral.

I. INTRODUCTION
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) have recently been used
with great success for military intelligence by providing a
viable alternative to manned aircraft due to their smaller size,
reduced risk to life, and reduced cost. Forces use UAVs in
applications such as border patrolling, security Intelligence,
surveillance, target acquisition and cost guards. Besides
military applications of UAVs it also use in many civil
applications such as search & rescue missions, explorations,
security & surveying of oil pipe lines, Forests on fire,
agricultural applications and power & nuclear plants
inspection.
There are many types of UAVs available but this article
focuses only on fixed wing type UAV. Fixed-wing UAV
system having ability to maneuvers in six DOF which are
(Forward, Sideway, Vertical, Yaw, Pitch and Roll) which
make it very complex and nonlinear. The fixed-wing UAV
dynamics can be categorized into longitudinal and lateral

978-1-4799-3091-3/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

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2014 IEEE 10th International Colloquium on Signal Processing & its Applications (CSPA2014), 7 - 9 Mac. 2014, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

II. MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF FIXED-WING UAV

For modeling of UAV flight dynamics it is necessary to
define an inertial frame of reference i.e. NED (North, East,
Down) frame and body fixed frame of UAV the relation of
these two frames are shown in Fig 1.

'T ( s)
'G e ( s)

m1s - C xu
- (C xD  C xD c1 s)
C xG e
- C zu
- (m1s  C zD  C zD c1 s) C zG e
- C mu
- (C mD  C mD c1 s)
C mG e
' long ( s)

(2)

Where,

'long(s) AG s 4  BG s 3  CG s 2  DG s  EG

(3)

With,

Figure 1: Body and NED frame of Fixed-wing UAV

To relate the rotation of motion in the Body frame
with NED (North, East and down) frame a rotation matrix is
used [6] [7]:
Pitch angle
The lateral axis passes through the plane from
wingtip to wingtips. The longitudinal movement around lateral
axis is called pitch. Pitch angle () is used to change the
vertical direction of the Fixed-wing UAV which can be
controlled by elevator movement represented by e.
The longitudinal equations of motion for elevator
control with lift, drag, weight and thrust components is given
by equation (1) [8]:

s(m1 C zq c1 )'T ( s )

C xG e 'G e ( s )
C zG e 'G e ( s )

ml ( I yl CzD  Cmq cl [ml  CzD cl ]  ml CmD cl )

CG

ml (C zD Cmq c1  m1Cmq  C zq CmD c12 )

DG

ml C zq c1C mD  C xu (C zD C mq c1  m1C mq  C zq C mD c12 )

EG

C xD Cmu C zq cl  C xT (C zu CmD  C zD Cmu )

(m1s - bC yE s )'E (s) - (bC yp s  C yI )'I (s) 

(m1 - bC yr )s'M ( s )

(1)

C yG a 'G a ( s )

(-C lE - bC lE s )'E (s)  (-C lp bs - I xl s 2 )'I (s) -

- C mu u(s) - (C mD  C mD c1 s)'D (s) s(I y1s  C mq c1 )'T ( s )

BG

B. Roll Angle
The axis from the nose to the tail of an aircraft is the
longitudinal axis. The movement in latitude axis along the
longitudinal axis is known as roll movement. The rolling
motion is being caused by the deflection of the aileron of the
aircraft. For a fixed-wing UAV flying at a constant altitude, a
roll angle command is often used for heading control. So for
controlling heading rate it is necessary to control roll angle.
Aileron defection is denoted by a.
The lateral equations of motion for aileron control are
expressed in equations below [9].

(m1s - C xu )u(s) - (C xD  C xD c1 s)'D (s) - C zu u(s) - (m1s  C zD  C zD c1 s)'D (s) -

ml I yl (ml  C zD cl )

(4)

A.

(C xq c1 s  C xT )'T ( s )

AG

(C lr bs - I xz s 2 )'M ( s )

C mG e 'G e ( s )

C lG a 'G a ( s )

(5)

(-C nE - bC nE s )'E (s)  (-C np bs - I xz s 2 )'I (s) -

Where, C x , C z , C m are aerodynamic coefficient, u,

(-C nr bs - I xn s 2 )'M ( s )

, q are longitudinal variable, S, c, b are reference area,

aerodynamic chord and wing span, C1 used to define the pitch
moment coefficients, Cx(u,,q), Cz(u,a,q), are stability derivatives
and C mG a , C mq are control derivatives. As elevator is the only

C nG a 'G a ( s )

Where,
, , are lateral variable and Cy(,,p,r), Cl(r,,p), Cn(r,,p), are
stability derivatives. After solving the above equations the
transfer function of aileron controlled roll angle deflection can
be written as.

longitudinal control input, the transfer function of the pitch

angle deflection can be expressed as equation (2).

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2014 IEEE 10th International Colloquium on Signal Processing & its Applications (CSPA2014), 7 - 9 Mac. 2014, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

III. PROPOSED CONTROL ALGORITHM

In feedback loop EKF is present which eliminate the noisy

signal. EKF block works on two step algorithm i.e. prediction
and correction [10].

The main purpose of this research is to design a controller

which can maintain the stability of a Fixed-wing unmanned
aircrafts orientation according to the desired input. PID
controller gives good results in controllability of roll, pitch and
yaw movement under wind disturbance condition, but it could
not eliminate or remove noises caused by sensor or measuring
device. The proposed control algorithm combined PID with
EKF to deal this issue. Figure 2 represents the block diagram of
proposed control algorithm.
Wind Disturbance ()

Referen
ce
Position

++

Controller

Filtered
Feedback
Signal

Let standard state space model of a system is,

yk

+
+

Output
Position

Extended
Kalman

Figure 2: Plant Model with PID Controller and EKF

f ( x k , u k )  wk

Pk 1

Ak Pk AkT )  Q

(9)

with

(10)

Ak (1  K k C k ) Pk

Pk 1

(6)

Where Kk is the correction Kalman gain vector,

system state matrix and is output state matrix.

s
1
]
and J ( s) [1, ,
s 1 Tf s

is

IV. IMPLEMENTATION OF CONTROL ALGORITHM.

Let system model is G(k) = f(xk, uk), wind disturbance

is and the system and sensor noise signal is vk, then the
effect on plant model with disturbance and noises can be
written as

G(k) = f(x k , u k ) +  v

x k 1

K k Pk C kT (C k Pk C kT  R) 1
x k 1 f ( x k , u k )  K k [ y k  h( x k )]

In the above figure PID controller can be define as

U T = >K p , K I , K D @

estimate Pk+1 from previous time step k to the current time

step k+1, define as

By calculation the correction factor Pk (predicted error

covariance) and Q (noise covariance) it estimates the next
state correctly and removes the noise from it [11].
The measurement update equations of EKF are:

EKF

U T J ( s)

(8)

output, and wk, vk are the process and measurement noises

respectively.
EKF predict the next state x k 1 with covariance

Plant

Filter

L(s)

h( x k )  v k

Where xk is a state vector, y k is a measured process

Sensor Noise
(Vk)

Fixed
Wing
UAV

f ( xk , u k )  wk

x k 1

In this section only Roll angle is taken into account and

similarly, pitch and yaw movement can be derive. To get the
desired roll angle movement, consider the above Roll Equation
(5). After putting Aircraft kinematics & dynamics values, We
get,

(7)

'I ( s)
'G a ( s)

So the error signal become higher and cause unstability in the

plant. e > 0
using equation (6) and (6) open loop transfer function can be
written as

k1 s 3  k 2 s 2  k 3 s
k 4 s 5  k 5 s 4  k 6 s 3  k 7 s 3  k8 s

(11)

The parameter values for Roll Angle are shown in Table-1.

M(s) (G(k)  /  vk )( U T J (s))

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2014 IEEE 10th International Colloquium on Signal Processing & its Applications (CSPA2014), 7 - 9 Mac. 2014, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

unknown disturbance. The results also describe the stability of

the system before and after the controller implementation.
Figure 3 and figure 4 shows uncontrolled and controlled
system root locus respectively.

Table 1: Roll Angle Movement Equations Parameter

Parameters

Values

k1

0.0046

k2

0.0046

k3

0.0211

k4

1.5586e-4

k5

0.0015

k6

0.0022

k7
k8

0.0076
6.6266e-5

Root Locus
2.5

U ncontrolled System
2

1.5

Imaginary Axis (seconds-1)

0.5

-0.5

-1

-1.5

For Roll angle equation the open loop equation without

external influence can be written as,

-2

-2.5
-20

-15

-10

-5

10

15

20

Real Axis (seconds -1)

;( s )

L( s ) G ( s )

'I ( s)
( U T J ( s))
'G a ( s)

Figure 3: Locus plot of Uncontrolled System

(12)

Root Locus
8

And finally open loop equation of Roll Angle can easily

convert into close loop feedback equation by G .
1  GH
Where

G( s)

;( s )

and

H ( s) 1

Imaginary Axis (seconds-1)

(13)

-2

-4

-6

-8
-9

For noise estimation consider Equation (8). Now by using

equation (10) we can estimate the optimal state of the system
and remove the unwanted noise from it.

Controlled System
-8

-7

-6

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

Real Axis (seconds -1)

Figure 4: Locus plot of Controlled System

V. SIMULATION RESULTS
For validation of proposed PID with EKF control technique
in fixed-wing UAVs Yaw, Pitch and Roll angle stabilization,
MATLAB plate form is chosen. The parameters of PID
controller are chosen by auto-tune method in such a way that
the Yaw, Pitch and Roll stabilized as fast as possible. The
values of P, I, D and N for each angle mentioned in Table-2.
Table 2: PID controller auto-tuned Parameter
Yaw
Pitch
Roll

P
-0.0030032
-6.52465
0.459233

I
-4.1459e-06
-4.41734
6.465042

D
-0.32887
-1.97792
-0.012299

N
0.1559
38.28956
37.3396

Figure 5: Open Loop and Close Loop system step

Response
From Fig. 3, the poles of the system lies left hand
side but very near to the origin and zeros lies at right hand side
so due to this at some small values of gain (K) the system may
stable but at higher values of K the system become unstable.
Figure 4 shows the root locus plot of the system with
controller and it shows that all values of K the system remain
stable. Figure 5 represents the response of the controlled and
uncontrolled system for step input and it is clearly seen that
the system without controller is unstable at higher values of K

The simulation results show the open loop, close loop

PID and close loop PID with EKF (Extended Kalman Filter)
under noisy and disturbed conditions. Simulated result shows
the effectiveness of proposed controller for stabilizing Yaw,
Pitch and Roll angles of fixed wing UAV. The closed loop
system behaviors are analyzed in the absence and presence of

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2014 IEEE 10th International Colloquium on Signal Processing & its Applications (CSPA2014), 7 - 9 Mac. 2014, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

while the system with controller is completely stable and

achieves the set point. Figure 6-8 are the step responses of the
yaw, pitch and roll angles and each angle has different
response due the poles placement. Yaw open loop result shows
that it always going in negative direction while the input is
constant. Pitch result shows initially system response was
oscillating but after some time its oscillation die out and
system become stable, but still system is not achieving the
reference value. Roll angle shows no response or zero
response.
Figure 10: Close Loop PID Response of Pitch Angle

Figure 6: Open Loop Response of Yaw Angle

Figure 11: Close Loop PID Response of Roll Angle

Figure 9, 10 and 11 shows the close loop PID
response of the yaw, pitch and roll angles. From figures its
clear that system is achieving the reference input in very short
time. The feedback noise is also added in the system feedback
input. In figure 9-11 the impact of noise can be seen that due
to feedback sensor noise the output is also very noisy. Table 1
shows the values of Proportional P, Integral I, Derivative D
and Filter Coefficient N.

Figure 7: Open Loop Response of Pitch Angle

Figure 8: Open Loop Response of Roll Angle

Figure 12: Close Loop PID with Extended Kalman Response
of Yaw Angle

Figure 9: Close Loop PID Response of Yaw Angle

Figure 13: Close Loop PID with Extended Kalman Response

of Pitch Angle

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2014 IEEE 10th International Colloquium on Signal Processing & its Applications (CSPA2014), 7 - 9 Mac. 2014, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

controller with EKF gives great combination and it gives very

good results. From the simulation results we can conclude that
the proposed PID with EKF control methodology is good
enough for Yaw, Pitch and Roll movement stability under
noisy and disturbed conditions.

REFERENCES
[1] B. Kada, Y. Ghazzawi Robust PID Controller Design for
an UAV Flight Control System Proceedings of the.
World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science
2011 Vol II WCECS 2011, October 19-21, 2011, San
Francisco, USA .
[2] Stephen Wong and Jennifer Yu, Autonomous Stable
Flight with a PID Controller.
[3] Wei Ren and Randal W. Beard, Constrained Nonlinear
Tracking Control for Small Fixed-Wing Unmanned Air
Vehicles Proceeding of the 2004 American Control
Conference Boston, Massachusetts June 30 - July 2, 2004
[4] S. Jackson, J. Tisdale, "Tracking controllers for small
UAVs with wind disturbances: theory and flight results",
in Proc. IEEE Conf. Decision Control, 2008, pp. 564569.
[5] Yang Chen; Tianmiao Wang; Jianhong Liang; Chaolei
Wang; Chenghao Xue, "A fuzzy robust path following
controller for a small unmanned air vehicle," Industrial
Electronics and Applications (ICIEA), 2012 7th IEEE
Conference on , vol., no., pp.1189,1194, 18-20.
[6] M. Hassan Tanveer, S. Faiz Ahmed, D. Hazry, M.
Kamran Joyo, Faizan. A. Warsi, Disturbance And Noise
Rejection Controller Design For Smooth Takeoff /
Landing And Altitude Stabilization Of Quad-rotor,
Journal of Applied Sciences Research, 9(5): 3316-3327,
2013
[7] Faizan. A. Warsi, Roll Angle Stabilization of Fixed-wing
UAVs in occurrence of noises by using PID with EKF
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189-200.
[8] Bandu N. Pamadi. Performance, Stability and Dynamics
Control of Airplanes. AIAA Education Series.

Figure 14: Close Loop PID with Extended Kalman Response

of Roll Angle
Figure 12, 13 and 14 shows the close loop PID with
EKF (Extended Kalman Filter) estimator on feedback results,
and the output of the system shows great difference in noise
suppression in the presence of Kalman estimator. In figure 14
the feedback input noise can be seen in red color and noise in
output of the system in blue color shows the impact of
Extended Kalman on system.

Figure 15: Impact of disturbance and noise on

System
The impact of input disturbance can be seen in the figure 15.
In figure 15 brown color show the input reference with added
disturbance and blue color system response shows how
quickly PID rejects the impact of disturbance on the system
while the impact of noise is canceled out by Extended Kalman
Filter.

[9] Handbook of Networked and Embedded Control Systems,

page 419-446, Birkhuser Publisher, Boston, 2005
[10] M.Hassan Tanveer, S. Faiz Ahmed, D. Hazry, Stabilized
controller design for attitude and altitude controlling of
quad-rotor underdisturbance and noisy conditions,
American journal of applied sciences ,2013, vol. 10, no.
8, pp 819-831.
[11] M. Kamran, D. Hazry, Position Controller Design for
Quad-rotor under Perturbed Condition, Wulfenia
Journal, vol. 20, no. 7, 2013, pp 178-189.

VI. Conclusion
This paper presents the design of robust controller for yaw,
pitch and roll movement stabilization for fixed-wing UAV.
Design of controller is based on PID with Extended Kalman
Filter technique. According to the simulation results it is
observed that PID controller stabilize very well the movement
of angles and also helps the system to be stable under disturbed
condition while for the noisy conditions EKF works well to
suppress the impact of noise. So the combining effect of PID

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