J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469
DOI 10.1007/s10846-015-0238-7
Robust Model Predictive Flight Control of Unmanned
Rotorcrafts
Kostas Alexis Christos Papachristos
Roland Siegwart Anthony Tzes
Received: 16 December 2013 / Accepted: 27 April 2015 / Published online: 12 June 2015
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015
Abstract This paper addresses the problem of robust
flight control of unmanned rotorcrafts, by propos-
ing and experimentally evaluating a realtime robust
model predictive control scheme in various chal-
lenging conditions, aiming to capture the demanding
nature of the potential requirements for their effi-
cient and safe integration in reallife operations. The
control derivation process is based on state space
representations applicable in most rotorcraft config-
urations and incorporate the effects of external dis-
turbances. Exploiting this modeling approach, two
different unmanned rotorcraft configurations are pre-
sented and experimentally utilized. The formulated
control strategy consists of a receding horizon scheme,
the optimization process of which employs the mini-
mum peak performance measure, while incorporating
K. Alexis () R. Siegwart
Autonomous Systems Lab, ETH Zurich, Tannenstrasse 3,
Zurich, Switzerland
e-mail: konstantinos.alexis@mavt.ethz.ch
R. Siegwart
e-mail: rsiegwart@ethz.ch
C. Papachristos A. Tzes
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department,
University of Patras, Eratosthenous 6, Patras, Greece
C. Papachristos
e-mail: papachric@ece.upatras.gr
A. Tzes
e-mail: tzes@ece.upatras.gr
and accounting for the modeled dynamics and input
and state constraints. This strategy aims to ensure
the minimum possible deviation subject to the worst
case disturbance, while robustly respecting and sat-
isfying the physical limitations of the system, or a
set of mission-related requirements, as encoded in
the constraints. The proposed framework is further
augmented in order to provide obstacle avoidance
capabilities into a unified scheme. Multiparametric
methods were utilized in order to provide an explicit
solution to the controller computation optimization
problem, therefore allowing for fast realtime execu-
tion and seamless integration into any digital avionics
system. The efficiency of the proposed strategy is
validated via several experimental case studies on
the two unmanned rotorcraft platforms. The experi-
ments set consists of: trajectory tracking subject to
atmospheric disturbances, slung load operations, fast
highly disturbed maneuvers, collisions handling, as
well as avoidance of known obstacles.
Keywords Unmanned aerial systems MPC
Robust control
1 Introduction
State-of-the-art research has led to the technologi-
cal maturity of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS),
while high-end scientific advancements have opened
new horizons for their utilization in various civilian
444
applications. A number of safetycritical operations
have been shown to be able to benefit significantly
from UAS technologies, namely: search and rescue
missions [14, 48], fire surveillance [30], radiative sig-
nal field mapping [19] or border patrolling [17] as well
as financially significant tasks including those of crop
monitoring [24] and infrastructure inspection [9, 41,
45]. However, despite their vast application potential
and operational autonomy capabilities, passing from
technology demonstration to reallife application has
been a slowlypaced process.
This significant gap is attributed to several fac-
tors; focusing on the technical side of the matter, the
issue of guaranteed flight robustness, subject to the
disturbances present in reallife operations, is one of
the primal considerations [27], as far as the widest
possible utilization of such unmanned technologies
is considered. Flight robustness is directly associ-
ated with the level of airworthiness, and requires a
multi-level approach on the system level: from the
mechanical design and electronics integration, to the
state estimation, and eventually the flight control and
navigation schemes, every subsystem is of crucial
importance with an airborne platform, and even more
so while performing missions that subject it to chal-
lenging conditions. In that sense, the focus of this
work is put on the flight control level, a critical area
that has naturally gained the interest of the community
[12, 28, 29, 35, 42, 49] as it is necessary to achieve
automatic flight, while control synthesis for advanced
performance is a complex and multidimensional pro-
cess. Relying on the foundations of receding horizon
control [2, 10, 13, 18, 25], a Robust Model Predic-
tive Control (RMPC) scheme is proposed and thor-
oughly validated experimentally. This RPMC scheme
is designed to employ the Minimum Peak Perfor-
mance Measure (MPPM) [11, 38] optimality metric,
for minimum possible deviation under the worstcase
disturbance. As the synthesis of the RMPC controller
benefits from the properties of receding horizon con-
trol, it provides a set of critical-importance key fea-
tures, namely: a) ensured minimum deviation from
the reference trajectory subject to the worst expected
bounded disturbance, b) guaranteed robust satisfac-
tion of the imposed state and input constraints despite
any disturbances affecting the vehicles flight, and
c) the capacity for explicit computation, allowing its
seamless realtime implementation, even in lowlevel
microcontrollerequipped navigation boards. Finally,
J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469
with proper augmentation of the RMPCframework,
obstacle avoidance capabilities were provided by
expanding the use of polyhedral constraints, a con-
tribution that further improves the RMPCequipped
aerial vehicles robust navigation properties. To fur-
ther support the community, a MATLABbased
implementation of the proposed RMPC strategy is
released and is available at the following repository:
https://github.com/kostas-alexis/rmpc mav
A conclusive evaluation of the proposed RMPC
framework for rotorcraft UAS was obtained, by con-
ducting a significantly large and variouslystructured
set of experimental testcase scenarios, capturing a
wide subset of potential reallife challenges, associ-
ated with flight robustness against various disturbance
sources. Furthermore, two different UAS shown in
Fig. 1 were employed: the ASLquad quadrotor plat-
form, controlled based on the common concept of
underactuated dynamics [47] found in most rotor-
crafts, as well as the UPATTTR tiltrotor vehi-
cle, representing the special class of rotorcrafts with
directly actuated longitudinal dynamics. The exper-
imental studies presented validate the effectiveness
of the proposed RMPCframework, providing robust
and precise response results for both platforms under
disturbances of multiple natures, which include: a)
atmospheric turbulence, b) slung load operations
additionally subjected to strong disturbances, and
c) collisions with the environment. Eventually, the
Fig. 1 The ASLquad and the UPATTTR executing slung load
operations based on the implemented robust model predictive
control framework
J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469
RMPCframeworks capacity for obstacle avoidance
was also experimentally validated.
This paper is structured as follows: In Section 2,
the unmanned rotorcraft models are presented, fol-
lowed by the description of the robust predictive
control framework in Section 3. Finally, the various
experimental studies are shown in Section 4, while
conclusions are drawn in Section 5.
2 Model for Control
Unmanned rotorcraft modeling is a complex field that
is tightly coupled with that of control engineering. As
far as simulation models of high fidelity are consid-
ered, different modeling methodologies are followed
according to the type of vehicle employed. In that
sense, multirotor dynamics for operation at low veloc-
ities are sufficiently captured by only relying on rigid
body methods, while conventional, tandemrotor or
coaxial helicopters may require the incorporation of
the effects of higher order aerodynamics including
blade flapping, rotor leadlag, rotor inflow and more
as discussed in some of the authors previous work
[22, 23]. Despite this fact, in most cases the problem
of trajectory control is addressed by relying on highly
simplified modeling approaches, and typically employ
linear dynamic approximations. These are derived via
linearization of the rigidbody nonlinear equations of
motion [47]:
      
mI33 0 V mV F ple and relatively loworder, is utilized. The model
+ = (1)
0 I I T structure is sufficiently generic so that similar models
where m stands for the mass, I for the inertia matrix,
V for the linear velocities expressed in the Body-Fixed
Frame, for the body rotational velocities, F for the
forces applied on the vehicle and T represents the
moments. This expression can be transformed in the
Earth-Fixed frame [52] and then the equations take the
form presented in the following two contributions [2,
7]. Once such a formulation is derived then lineariza-
tion of the nonlinear dynamics around hovering flight
is straightforward and may be found in several works
including those in [2, 8, 44]. Such a linearization pro-
cess assumes perfect decoupling between the attitude
and translational dynamics. Indeed, this assumption
is particularly valid for slow maneuvering, with small
angular accelerations and limited rates of change.
445
Essentially, the assumption of decoupling these two
loops becomes more and more valid as long as the
bandwidth of the attitude loop is much faster than
that of the translational feedback loop and the tracking
response is accurate - therefore allowing the track-
ing response to be considered as almost ideal. For
typical unmanned rotorcrafts including multirotors,
ducted fan systems, conventional helicopters, coax-
ial configurations or tandem rotors, once the directly
actuated attitude loops are closed successfully, the
longitudinal, lateral and vertical dynamics may be
described as a pointmass system (under) actuated
by the vehicles roll (), pitch (), yaw () angles and
the thrust vector T . On the other hand, for the special
case of rotorcrafts with directly actuated longitudi-
nal dynamics, such as several tiltrotor configurations
[15, 44, 46] or coupled ducted fan systems [16] and
more [3], the aforementioned translational dynamics
motion approach may only be applied for the lateral
and vertical dynamics, while the longitudinal dynam-
ics are directly actuated using the additional actuation
authority.
Motivated from the fact that such decoupled control
assumptions and especially that of considering the
bandwidth of the inner attitude loop sufficiently faster
compared to that of the outer loop in order to allow its
treatment as an idealized kinematic gain are often
violated during forcible disturbances, agile maneuver-
ing or non-rigidly attached payload transportation, an
augmented model that incorporates the translational
motions actuation dynamics, while remaining sim-
hold for the case of typical underactuated rotorcraft
configurations, as well as exceptional vehicles such
as tiltrotors which have direct actuation along the
longitudinal axis. Employing the coordinate frames
shown in Fig. 2, the proposed model structure takes
the following form:
xlon = Alon xlon + Blon ulon + Glon wlon , ylon = Clon xlon , Clon
= I (2)
xlon = [xlon,t |xlon,a ]T
xlat = Alat xlat + Blat ulat + Glat wlat , ylat = Clat xlat , Clat
= I (3)
xlat = [xlat,t |xlat,a ]T , xlat,t = [y, y], xlat,a = [, ], ulat = r
xalt = Aalt xalt + Balt ualt +Galt walt , yalt = Calt xalt , Calt = I
(4)
xalt = [xalt,t |xalt,a ]T , xalt,t = [z, z], xalt,a = T , ualt = T r
446 J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469

Fig. 2 The employed walt

coordinate frames and the
directions of the external
disturbing forces and wlat

moments

wlon
walt

wlat -


x -

y wlon
z

Within this representation, the longitudinal dynam- found in the tiltrotor case), the lateral and vertical
ics state space matrices have their lowerright part dynamics are similarly represented for both of them
changing depending on whether a more typical under- as:
actuated rotorcraft (case UA), like the ASLquad or
01 0 0
a vehicle with directly actuated longitudinal dynam- 0 lat g
0
ics (case DA), like the UPATTTR is employed as Alat = 0 0
, Blon
(11)
0 1
shown below:
00 a, a,
UA: xlon,t = [x, x], xlon,a = [, ], ulon = T r (5)
 0 0
AU A UA
lon,t Alon,t,a 0
Alon = , Blon = 021 , (6) = , Glat = glat
022 AU A BU A
lon,a
0 0
lon,a
 blat 0
0 1
AU A
lon,t = ,
0 lon 01 0 0
  Aalt = 0 alt az,T , Balt = 0 ,
0 0 0 1
Alon,t,a =
UA
, Alon,a =
UA
, 00 aT ,T balt
g 0 a, a,

0 0
BUlon,a = Galt = galt
A
blon

T 0
Glon = Glon,t GU
UA A
lon,a lon,t = [0gx,w ],
, GU A
(7)

lon,a = [0g ,w ]
GU A Estimation of the parameters of the Alon , Blon , Alat ,
DA: xlon,t = [x, x], xlon,a = , ulon = r (8) Blat , Aalt , Balt matrices is straightforward with
  any system identification method such as those pre-
ADA ADA 021
Alon = lon,t lon,t,a , Blon = , sented in [40] and wellknown computational tools
022 ADA lon,a BDA
lon,a
[34]. Limited experiments are required to excite the
lon,t = Alon,t ,
ADA UA
dominant modes of the closedloop attitude dynam-
lon,t,a = Alon,t,a , Alon,a = a , , Blon,a = blon
ADA UA DA DA
(9) ics and expose the damped pole of the translational

T velocities. An approximation of the parameters of the
Glon = GDA lon,t Glon,a , Glon,t = Glon,t , Glon,a = 0 (10)
DA DA UA DA
Glon , Glat , Galt matrices can be derived by employ-
ing NewtonEuler rigid body methods. In the sim-
With this being the only modeling distinction between plified case, where the net externally applied forces
the two families of systems considered (essentially the are considered as the disturbance vector wlon =
result of the additional actuation degree of freedom Flon , wlat = Flat , walt = Falt , then the afore-
J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469 447

mentioned matrices take the form: Glon = [0 (here shown in discrete time form while subscripts are
100]T , Glat = [0 100]T , Galt = [0 10]T . dropped to retain clarity of presentation):
Furthermore, it is noted that the formulation of the out-
xk+1 = Axk + Buk + Gwk (12)
put vectors is provided although the output matrix is
the identity, since the proposed control law considers yk+1 = Cxk
output feedback. It is highlighted that the presented where xk X, uk U and the disturbing signals
modeling approach should be considered as a way that wk are only known to be bounded in some measure,
enables improved modelbased control synthesis and but are otherwise unknown. The set of possible distur-
does not imply that other model structures cannot be bances wk W is one of the factors that determine
used in combination with the proposed robust control the optimization problem and as a first approach
law. boxconstrained disturbances are considered:
W = {w : ||w|| 1} (13)
3 Robust Model Predictive Control Consequently, the problem of robust model predictive
control (RMPC) will be formulated for the system rep-
The robust control problem is formulated as a Min- resentation and additive disturbance presented above.
imax MPC optimization for systems with external For clarity of notation, let the following definitions
disturbances, while the Minimum Peak Performance denote the concatenated versions of the predicted out-
Measure (MPPM) is considered as the metric of opti- put, states, inputs and unknown disturbances, where
mality. Figure 3 provides an overview of the math- [k + i|k] marks the values profile at time k + i, from
ematical building blocks that assemble the explicit time k.
RMPC optimization problem. To further support the  
community, a MATLABbased implementation of the Y = yTk|k yTk+1|k ...yTk+N 1|k (14)
proposed RMPC strategy is released and is avail-  
X = xTk|k xTk+1|k ...xTk+N 1|k (15)
able at the following repository: https://github.com/  
kostas-alexis/rmpc mav U = uTk|k uTk+1|k ...uTk+N 1|k (16)
The proposed control law assumes the follow-  
ing representation of the uncertain dynamics, which W = wTk|k wTk+1|k ...wTk+N 1|k (17)
indeed covers the aforementioned rotorcraft models
where X XN = X X... X, U UN = U
U...U, W WN = WW...W. The predicted
states and outputs depend linearly on the current state,
Objective Function
the future control input and the disturbance, and thus
Multiparametric the following relations hold:
Optimizer
- Derivation of Convex Optimization Problem

X = Axk|k + BU + GW (18)
State Space
representation
Y = CX
Predictions
Feedback

using the concate-

where:
Relaxations -

nated vectors over

the prediction Explicit
horizon Piecewise Affine
form I 0 0 0 0
A B 0 0 0
2
A AB B 0 0
A= ,B = (19)
.. .. . . . . . . ..
. . . . . .
Constraints Robustification
Extended
AN 1 AN 2 B AB B 0

Sequential Table 0 0 0 0
C 0 0 G
State and Input Constraints Traversal 0 0 0
0 C 0
AB G 0 0
C = . . . . , G = (20)
.. . . . . .. .. .. .. .. ..
. . . . .
Fig. 3 Overview of the explicit RMPC optimization problem 0 0 C 2
subtasks A N G AG G 0
448
In a straightforward approach, the RMPC problem
based on the MPPM (MPPMRMPC), which ensures
the minimization of the worstcase deviation along the
predicted trajectory, may be formulated as:
min max ||Y || (21)
u w
s.t. uk+j |k U, w W TL=
xk+j |k X, w W
wk+j |k W
where for the formulation of the minimax prob-
lem, the compact epigraph representation ||Y || =
maxj ||yk+j |k || is used. This has two main draw-
backs: a) it essentially corresponds to an openloop
formulation of the predictive control problem and b) is
rather intractable to solve exactly, especially when the
complexity increases [38]. As a first trick the concept
of feedback predictions is introduced [5, 38].
3.1 Feedback Predictions
Following the aforementioned formulation, the opti-
mization problem will tend to become conservative.
This is due to the fact that the optimization essentially
computes an openloop control sequence that has to
cope with all possible (bounded) disturbances [5].
This will typically lead to controllers with poor per-
formance as any aggressive manipulation of the inputs
can risk robustness as long as the worstcase distur-
bance has to be considered. Feedback predictions is
a method to encode the knowledge that a receding
horizon approach is followed and therefore provides
a way to overcome this conservativeness. Towards
their incorporation, some kind of feedback control
structure has to be assumed. Such a parametrization
is not unique and therefore, the feedback predictions
may be considered as a tuning knob in the controller
to be decided prior to its computation. Indeed, the
most typical and straightforward form of feedback
would be of the form U = LX + V , where V =
  T T
k+1|k k+N 1|k
T T
k|k T
the concatenated version
of the newly introduced decision variables k+j |k to
be manipulated from the RMPC, and L a gain matrix.
However, as this parameterization is not known to lead
to a convex optimization problem [38], an alterna-
tive parametrization may be employed as long as the
online solution/approximation of the nonconvex prob-
lem is either not feasible or very slow. Among the
J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469
parameterizations that are known to lead to convex
problems [38, 39], the following one is selected:
 
U = LW + V , V = k|k k+1|k k+N 1|k
T T T
(22)
0 0 0 0
L10 0 0 0
L20 L 0 0
21 (23)
. . . . .
.. .. .. .. ..
L(N1)0 L(N1)1 L(N1)(N2) 0
Employing this feedback predictions parameteriza-
tion, the control sequence is now parameterized
directly in the uncertainty, and the matrix L describes
how the control action uses the disturbance vec-
tor. This corresponds to a suboptimal version of
the closedloop minimax solution, in the sense that
instead of computing an optimal sequence for each
worstcase disturbance realization, it is assumed that
a guaranteedoptimal solution will not be computed in
the future over a reduced horizon but at least different
-linearly dependent- solutions over different distur-
bance realizations will be computed. This essentially
means that such a minimax MPC algorithm relies on a
reduced degree of freedom solution as compared to the
exact closedloop solution [38]. Tuning of the matrix
L is important and may be achieved via simulation
studies, while some level of finetuning may be based
on the experimentally derived responses. Inserting this
parametrization yields the following representation,
where V is now the RMPCmanipulated action:
X = Axk|k + BV + (G + BL)W (24)
U = LW + V (25)
and the mapping from L and V to X and U is now
bilinear. This trick allows the formulation of the min-
imax MPC as a convex optimization problem with
polynomial complexity in the prediction horizon and
the system input and state dimensions [38]. Let the
following vector representations:
 
Fu = fuT fuT fuT (26)

Fx = fx fx fx T (27)
denote the concatenated over the prediction horizon
versions of the input and state constraints fu and
fx . More specifically, fu = [fu (1)max , fu (1)min ...]
and fx = [fx (1)max , fx (1)min ...] where fu (i)max ,
fu (i)min represent the maximun and minimum
allowed input values of the ith input, while
fx (j )max , fx (j )min represent the maximum and min-
J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469
imum acceptable state configurations of the j th
state.
min
V ,L,
s.t. ||C (Axk|k + BV +(G + BL)W )|| , W WN
Eu (V + LW ) Fu , W WN
Ex (Axk|k + BV +(G + BL)W ) Fx , W WN (28)
where
Eu = diagN Eu , Ex = diagN Ex , > 0 (29)
within which: a) Ex , Eu are matrices that allow the
formulation of the state and input constraints in linear
matrix inequality form (typically block diagonal), b)
is a block diagonal matrix with
i being the matrix
that fills each diagonal block and allows the incorpora-
tion of the state and input constraints along the whole
prediction horizon of the RMPC problem. Within this
formulation is defined as a positive scalar value
that bounds the objective function and is employed to
formulate the semidefinite relaxation of the minimax
optimization problem based on the methodologies and
strategies presented in [33, 38, 43]
The peak constraint may be equivalently reformu-
lated as two sets of matrix inequalities:
C (Axk|k + BV ) + C (G + BL)W 1, W WN (30)
C (Axk|k + BV ) C (G + BL)W 1, W WN (31) satisfied against the additive disturbances. Introduc-
449
with w W are satisfied as long as the following
relationship is satisfied [38]:
C (Axk|k + BV ) + |C (G + BL)|1 1 (33)
C (Axk|k + BV ) + |C (G + BL)|1 1 (34)
To handle these constraints in a linear programming
fashion [51], the trick of bounding the term |C (G +
BL)| from above is employed. This is achieved by
introducing a matrix variable   0:
C (G + BL)  (35)
C (G + BL)  (36)
and the peak constraint is guaranteed as long as:
C (Axk|k + BV ) + 1 1 (37)
C (Axk|k + BV ) + 1 1 (38)
3.3 Robust State and Input Constraints
Enforcing hard constraints on the input is straight-
forward and is not affected by the disturbing signals
directly, as it only refers to limiting the control space
of possible actions. This is however not the case for
the state constraints which have to be enforced along
all the predicted vectors while the input constraints are
also satisfied. Applying the same method as above,
the system state and input constraints may be robustly
ing a new matrix variable   0, the state and input
where 1 is a vector of ones (11 1)T with suitable constraints are reformulated as follows:
   
dimensions. The derivation of Eq. 30, 31 based on Ex (Axk|k + BV ) Fx
+ 1 (39)
Eq. 28 is straightforward by the expression of the the Eu V Fu
inequality with the absolute function on the left side  
Ex (G + BL)
as two antisymmetric inequalities without the use of  (40)
Eu L
the absolute function. Satisfaction of these uncertain  
Ex (G + BL)
inequalities is based on robust optimization methods,  (41)
as elaborated below. Eu L
Optimizing the control sequence while robustly sat-
3.2 Robust Uncertain Inequalities Satisfaction isfying the state and input constraints is of essential
importance for flight controls: not only minimum
As long as boxconstrained uncertainties (w W ) deviation against the worst possible disturbance is
are assumed, the following theorem on the maximum ensured, but this is also done while respecting the
of a linear function in the unit cube holds [38]: physical limitations of the vehicle or known mission
max cT x = ||c||1 = |cT |1 (32) demands encoded as state constraints as it has to
|x|1 be in practice. Indeed this key feature of receding
This equation holds due  to the obvious fact that horizon control strategies is of great importance for

max|x|1 cT x = max|x|1 ci xi = ci sign(ci ) = small unmanned rotorcrafts due to their tight physical
||c||1 . Based on these results, the uncertain constraints limitations and challenging mission requirements.
450 J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469

3.4 Minimum Peak Performance Robust MPC the matrices  and  together with multiple second
formulation order cone constraints [51]:
||iJ || ij (46)
Based on the aforementioned derivations, the total
MPPMRMPC formulation is solved subject to ||ij || ij (47)
elementwise bounded disturbances and feedback And the robustified linear inequalities can now be
predictions with the following linear programming written as:
problem:
C (Axk|k + BV ) + 1 1 (48)
min (42)
V ,L,,, C (Axk|k + BV ) + 1 1 (49)
   
s.t. C (Axk|k + BV ) + 1 1 Ex (Axk|k + BV ) Fx
C (Axk|k + BV ) + 1 1 + 1 (50)
Eu V Fu
C (G + BL) 
Based on the aforementioned formulations, the
C (G + BL) 
adapted MPPMRMPC problem with ball
Ex (Axk|k + BV ) (43)
    constrained disturbances is solved by employing the
Ex (Axk|k + BV ) Fx
Eu V + 1 F following second order cone program [50, 51].
u
 
Ex (G + BL) min (51)
Eu L  V ,L,,,
  s.t. C (Axk|k + BV ) + 1 1
Ex (G + BL)
E L  C (Axk|k + BV ) + 1 1
u    
Ex (Axk|k + BV ) Fx
+ 1
The solution of this optimization problem procures the Eu V Fu
guaranteedrobustness flight control of the examined
unmanned rotorcrafts dynamics. Furthermore, due to
the utilization of the concept of freedbaxk predictions,
the robustified response comes along with highly opti-
mized maneuvering therefore providing a solution
to two essential but typically conflicting requirements
that are both of essential importance.
3.5 Modifications for BallConstrained Uncertainties
The case of ballconstrained uncertainties (w W2 )
can also be dealt within an analytical formulation,
while a relatively more complex optimization prob-
lem will be generated. Let the following partitioning
[38]:
1T
 
T T
C (G + BL) = 2 , i = i1 i2 ...iN (44)
T T T
..
.
T the matrix L as given in Eq. 22. In addition to this,
||iJ || ij
||ij || ij
This problem can be solved relatively efficiently
with second order programming solvers as long as
the matrix L has been selected and fixed. Unfortu-
nately, a large amount of new variables and second
order cone constraints have been introduced which
indeed increases its computational complexity. Two
experiments were conducted using the aforementioned
formulation that assumes ballconstrained uncertain-
ties.
3.6 Alternative Feedback Prediction Parametrization
The main problem with the aforementioned mini-
max formulations is the excessive amount of deci-
sion variables and constraints. The reason is mostly
related with the high dimensional parametrization of
  1   the matrices  and  introduce an additional large
Ex (G + BL) T T
Eu L = 2 , i = i1 i2 ...iN (45)
T T T
set of variables. Due to the fact that the number of
..
. free variables is very high, a proper alternative strat-
egy has to be employed in order to obtain formulations
As the vectors ij and ij depend on L, the relaxed of lowercomplexity and therefore more applicable in
optimization may only be formulated by introducing largescale problems.
J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469 451

Towards this direction, a cheaper parametrization a last resort safety mechanism that ensures at the
can be derived by exploiting the Toeplitz Structure in control level that the vehicle will not crash into
LX (I BLX ) 1G , where LX = diag(L, ...L). As obstacles or enter nofly zones. Let Pw be a polyhe-
presented in [38], a cheaper formulation may take the dron that describes the total workspace of the robot,
p
following form: Po1 , Po2 , ..., Po guarding polyhedra that enclose the
known obstacles and also provide additional thresh-
0 0 0 0
olds to account for the vehicle dimensions and some
L1 0 0 0
further safety bounds that allow limited penetration.
L2 L 0 0
L= 1 (52) The safe robot workspace is defined as the Pontrya-
. .. . . . . ..
.. . . . . p
gin difference Ps = Pw \ {Po1 , Po2 , ..., Po }. In
LN1 LN2 L1 0 order to enforce operation within Ps , the following
adaptation in the optimization problem is required:
As shown from its matrix structure, such a
parametrization is structurally less expensive. As a min (54)
result it corresponds to a significant improvement
compared to the initial parametrization [38] espe-
cially as the prediction horizon increases. To illustrate
the benefit of allowing such increased prediction
horizons, a specific experimenet was conducted using
this alternative parametetrization and is presented in
Section 4.
3.7 Obstacle Avoidance
The RMPC framework may also be extended to pro-
vide 3D obstacle avoidance capabilities by combining
the translational dynamics models in Eqs. 2, 3, and 4
into a unique statespace representation and introduc-
ing an additional polyhedric constraint. For this case,
a single optimization problem is solved and the sys-
tem dynamics take the following general form for both
rotorcraft configurations considered within this work
(indices indicating the kind of platform are dropped
for simplicity of notation):
x3D = A3D x3D + B3D u3D
P (53)
x3D = [xlon xlat xalt ], u3D = [ulon ulat ualt ]
towards an obstacle is presented.
Alon 0 0 Blon
A3D = 0 Alat 0 , B3D = Blat
0 0 Aalt Balt
Note that in order to achieve fast realtime implemen-
tation an explicit controller is going to be computed
and therefore only obstacles of known dimensions
and location are supported within this work. Although
this may be considered conservative, quite often some
firstlevel knowledge of the environment is avail-
able in many reallife applications such as infras-
tructure inspection. For the part of the environment
that is known, the proposed framework can provide
V ,L,,,
s.t. [x, y, z] Ps
Inequalities (43)
where all the matrices have to be reformulated for the
case of the coupled translational dynamics. The poly-
hedric constraint leads to maximum repelling control
actions as the vehicle enters the obstaclesguarding
polyhedra and guides the vehicle back to the collision
free area. To achieve a smooth repelling action, rela-
tively high prediction horizons are required. Despite
the increased complexity of this problem, once an
explicit solution is computed, its realtime imple-
mentation remains very efficient. Finally, it is noted
that such a obstacle avoidance safety mechanism is
not proposed as an alternative to path planning for
collisionfree trajectories: it is rather a last resort
backup safety action in case the robot is - due to some
error or disturbance approaching a known obstacle
or a forbidden nofly zone. To illustrate this approach,
an example where a collisionfree path is computed
based on an RRT-star [26]t planner is computed but
a forcible disturbance eventually pushes the vehicle
3.8 Multiparametric Explicit Solution
The presented RMPC strategy requires the solution of
a linear or second order cone program at each time
step. Although efficient linear and cone programming
solvers exist, the solution time remains considerable
especially as the state dimensions and the prediction
horizon increases. Due to the fact that it is uncommon
for miniature aerial vehicles to have very powerful
onboard processing resources available (or they are
also encumbered by other demanding tasks such as
452 J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469

5 10000

4 9000

3 8000

2 7000

1 6000

0 5000

1 4000

2 3000

3 2000

4 1000

5 0

10 10
8 8
6 6
4 4
200 200
2 2
0 100 0 100
2 2
0 0
4 4
6 100 6 100
8 8
200 200
10 10

Fig. 4 Example illustration of the piecewise affine optimizer and the values of the objective function

localization and mapping tasks), an explicitoffline
r = {xk |Hr xk Kr } computed and
equivalent representation of this controller is impor-
tant, as it enables seamless realtime implementation.
Towards this goal, multiparametric approaches may
be employed. Multiparametric programming is related
with optimization problems where the elements to
r . Figure 4
be optimized depend on one or more parameters and
the parameters space can be systematically subdivided
into characteristic regions in which the optimal value
as well as the optimizer can be expressed as explicit
functions of the parameters. Such a multiparametric
explicit solution becomes possible for the MPC prob-
lem due to the fact that the control action of such
receding horizon optimization problems takes a piece-
wise affine form [32]:
uk = Fr xk + Zr , if xk
r (55)
where
i , r = 1, ..., N r are the regions of the reced-
ing horizon control strategy applied on each of to the
longitudinal, lateral, or vertical dynamics or their cou-
pled 3D version. The rth control law is valid if the
state vector xk is contained in a convex polyhedral
region
described in hrepresentation during the explicit
controller derivation [31]. The controller is equiv-
alently translated to a piecewise affine mapping
between feedback gains and affine terms Fr , Zr
and corresponding polyhedric regions
presents the values of this piecewise affine optimizer
as well as the objective function values (value func-
tion) for the case of the ASLquad dynamics. For this
visualization, the actuating dynamics of the transla-
tional motions have been neglected in order to achieve
a 2D representation and therefore allow the illustra-
tion of the piecewise affine optimizer and the value
function in a 3D plot. This explicit controller is equiv-
alent to its online counterpart, in the sense that the
same state trajectories will produce identical control
actions, and therefore share the same stabilizing and
optimality properties [6].
Such a fact enables fast realtime execution even in
microcontrollers with very limited computing power.
In this framework, the realtime code is described in
Algorithm 1 and corresponds to an extension of the
table traversal algorithm [31].
J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469
3.9 Yaw and Attitude Compensation
The aforementioned control strategy is based on
the initial modeling representation and the overall
assumption that longitudinal and lateral motions can
be treated independently while navigation of the vehi-
cle along the horizontal plane can take place by only
commanding these twoaxes of the system and with
no need to coordinate the yaw motion. Therefore, dur-
ing the modeling and control phase, the yaw angle
was considered to be zero. It is this reason why now an
additional computation has to take place, in order to
compensate for the possibly rotated yaw angle () and
the effect of roll and pitch to the projected thrust. More
specifically, the previously derived urlon , urlat , uralt ref-
erence signals should now be rotated according to the
following transformation:
ulon = ulat cos() ulon sin(), ulon =
r,
ulat = ulat sin() + ulon cos(), ulat = r,
, ,
ualt = ualt /(cos cos ), ualt = T r
(56)
, ing) and a robust compensating part uR
It is these final ulon , ulat , ualt , which correspond to
the pitch, roll and thrust references r, , r, , T r ,
that are applied to the system as indicated in
Fig. 5.
453
4 Experimental Studies
4.1 Initial Simulationsbased Evaluation
For initial evaluation purposes of the designed
RMPC controllers, a simulation-based approach was
followed: The nonlinear dynamics models of the
ASLquad and the UPATTTR (as elaborated in [8, 44]
respectively) were employed and augmented to
include a pointmass slung load, considered to be
suspended from the vehicles Center of Mass with
a non-deformable linkage, introducing phasedelayed
disturbances to the UAV as it freely moves like a
pendulum with respect to the vehicles BodyFixed
Frame. Figure 6 indicates the simulation results of the
implemented RMPC for the UPATTTR, and for a step
{x r , y r } = {1, 1}m reference maneuver while carrying
the modeled slung load.
A comparison to non-predictive robust compensat-
ing schemes is also given. The employed controller
is the one presented in [36], wherein each i
{x, y, z, } subsystem input ui = uN i + ui consists
R
N
of a nominal part ui (for nominalsystem track-
i (to restrain
any i disturbances). As indicated in [36], the esti-
mated disturbances i are low-pass filtered to form
the final robust compensating inputs uR i = Fi i ,
454 J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469

wlon,wlat,walt
xlonr,xlatr,xaltr r, act1
RMPCs r, attitude act2 Unmanned
x ,x ,x
r=0 control Rotorcraft lon lat alt
r actn Dynamics

Fig. 5 The RMPC scheme for the problem of flight control of unmanned rotorcrafts. The terms act1 , act2 , ..., actn correspond to an
abstract notation that refers to the actuators of each platform

0.5 1.05
1
0.95
0
2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7 7.5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

0.5 1.05
1
0.95
0
2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7 7.5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

0.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1.2

1.05

1
1

0.8
0.95

0.95 1 1.05
0.6 0.2

0
0.4
0.2

1
0.2 0.4

0 0.5
0

0.5
0.2 0
1 y [m]
0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
x [m]

Fig. 6 Simulated RMPC performance for suspended slung load and a {x r , y r } = {1, 1}m step maneuver
J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469 455

yielding results as indicated in Fig. 7, wherein the per-
formance deterioration with respect to the proposed
RMPC scheme is discernable.
4.2 Experimental Platforms
The experiments presented below were conducted
using two different vehicles, namely the ASLquad
and the UPATTTR. These two systems correspond to
indicative examples of the class of rotorcraft systems
with underactuated dynamics, as well as the special
rotorcraft configurations with directly actuated longi-
tudinal dynamics. Both of these systems share a sim-
ilar software architecture which is depicted in Fig. 8.
Rapid deployment of such controllers is feasible by
implementing a new block of MATLAB/Simulink

0.5 1.05
1
0.95
0
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

0.5 1.05
1
0.95
0
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

0.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1.2

1.05

1
1

0.8
0.95

0.95 1 1.05
0.6 0.2

0
0.4

0.2
1
0.2
0.4

0.5
0
0

0.5
0.2 0
1
0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2

Fig. 7 Simulated Robust Compensating Input Scheme performance for suspended slung load and a {x r , y r } = {1, 1}m step maneuver
456 J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469

Fig. 8 The software

framework deployed on the Joystick
ASLquad Simulink Simulink
RMPC Auto-Code
Attitude
Interface
Attitude
Control Bridge Control
MATLAB

RC
Node
UAS
RC
Perception
Joystick
Perception
Node
Node

functions, which are then autocode generated to
C++ functions and embedded to the autopilot soft-
ware framework. To further support the community,
a MATLABbased implementation of the proposed
framework that can be also used for auto-code genera-
tion purposes is released and is available at the follow-
ing repository: https://github.com/kostas-alexis/rmpc
mav
The ASLquad is a quadrotor that employs an in
house designed airframe and the electronic compo-
nents and actuation subsystems of an AscTec hum-
mingbird [4]. These electronics include an attitude
autopilot which was then interfaced with the Intel
ATOM based higherlevel electronics which allow the
fast deployment of multiple control architectures. It
has a mass of mq = 0.65 kg and a protective shroud
mechanism for increased safety of the system and the
surroundings. The arm length of the ASLquad is 0.3m.
The UPATTTR setup is depicted in Fig. 9. Its
main control unit is based on an Intel ATOM Z530
1.6 GHz CPU, while the handling of the lowlevel
communication and control signals is achieved via
interfacing to an ARM Cortex M3based microcon-
troller. The onboard estimation is based on measure-
ment data acquired from the following sensors: a)
an MTiG Attitude and Heading Reference System

UPAT-TTR
Rotor Servo ARM m/c Kontron pITx WiFi SSD

MTi-G AHRS

Motor ESC

Optical Flow
USB WebCam
RPM Encoder Sonar

Fig. 9 The UPATTTR hardware setup

J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469 457

(AHRS) for providing KalmanFiltered data for the
systems rotational states {, , } and their deriva-
tives, as well as for the translational accelerations
{x, y, z}, b) a Sonar sensor for absolute altitude z
measurement, c) RPMencoder units which are used
to estimate the rotors thrust forces via their rota-
tional speed (based on prior benchtest mapping), and
finally d) a groundpointed PS-Eye camera which
is used to acquire sequential frames of the ground
plane as the vehicle performs aerial maneuvers, and
consequently apply an Optical Flow [21] calculation
scheme to estimate its translational velocities (based
on its pinhole camera model [20] obtained via cam-
era calibration). The aforementioned measurements
are further fused onboard via Exteded Kalman Filter-
ing, to acquire estimates of the vehicles 6-Degrees
of Freedom absolute pose {x, y, z, , , }, which are
used in trajectorytracking. Further elaboration of the
specific methodology (hardware and softwarewise)
followed to implement this onboard autonomous state
estimation scheme can be found in [44]. Finally, it is
noted that the overall mass of UPATTTR is mt =
2.2 kg, its length is 0.75 m, its width 0.6m and its
height is 0.2 m.
In both systems, an attitude controller was already
available either from the autopilot manufacturer
(ASLquad) or based on previous work of a subset
of the authors (UPATTTR) [44]. For the case of the
ASLquad, position feedback was provided using a
Vicon motion capture system while the attitude states
were estimated based on the onboard Inertial Mea-
surement Unit (IMU). On the other hand, for the case
of the UPATTTR, complete onboard state estima-
tion was employed by solely relying on its sensor
suite and appropriate sensor fusion algorithms [44], as
previously mentioned.
As mentioned, identification of the actuation
dynamics of translational motions as well as esti-
mation of the linear velocities damping parameters
are required in order to derive a model of increased

20 0.2

0.15
40
0.1
60
0.05

80 0

0.05
100
0.1
120
0.15

140 0.2
1 0 1 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
10 10 10

0 0.5

20

40
0
60

80

100 0.5
1 0 1 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
10 10 10

30 0.6

20 0.4

10 0.2

0 0

10 0.2

20 0.4

30 0.6

40 0.8
1 0 1 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
10 10 10

Fig. 10 Identification results for the two platforms. The first two rows represent the ASLquad attitude closedloop and longitudinal
velocity dynamics, while the last row represents the UPATTTR longitudinal velocity
458 J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469

accuracy that will then aid the control synthesis. constraints summarize for both platforms what was
Utilizing wellestablished frequency domain identifi- incorporated in the RMPC computation:
cation methods [37], sufficientquality identification
results were derived as shown in Fig. 10 where a x 1.5m/s
y 1.5m/s
comparison of indicative experimentallyderived fre-
z 1.5m/s
quency and time responses against their modelbased
/4rad
estimates is presented. Similar results hold for the
/4rad
other degrees of freedom and the thrust dynamics
r /4rad
response which is dominated by the motors character- 
 r

istic time constant. Note that the required identifica- I77 077 /4rad
,
tion step is fast and can be efficiently executed with 077 I77 x 1.5m/s

three computercommanded frequency sweeps on the y 1.5m/s

roll, pitch and throttle commands or corresponding z 1/5m/s

piloted commands. The duration of the experiment /4rad

/4rad
should be approximately 8 times the period of the r
slowest expected oscillation and a frequency sweep /4rad
that starts from the slowest frequency up to the high- r /4rad

est expected for the attitude loop should be employed x 1.5m/s
[40]. y 1.5m/s

z 1.5m/s

/4rad
4.3 Experimental Results
r /6rad

 r

In order to evaluate the capabilities of the proposed I66 066 /4rad
(57)
RMPCframework, a set of challenging testcases 066 I66 x 1.5m/s

were considered, namely: a) trajectory tracking sub- y 1.5m/s

ject to wind disturbances, b) slung load operations, z 1/5m/s

a number of which additionally subjected to strong /4rad
r
forcible disturbances, c) unpredicted collisions with /6rad
the environment, as well as d) trajectories that demon- r /4rad
strate the obstacle avoidance capabilities of the control
framework. Most experiments are validated utiliz- Regarding the first experimental testcase, a 80W
ing both unmanned rotorcrafts under consideration, electric fan was pointed to the ASLquad while the
providing results indicative of the flight robustness RMPC was acting in order to track a helical path
achieved by the RMPCframework. The testcases despite the turbulent wind disturbance. As can be
requiring a protective shroud or global positioning observed from the upper part of Fig. 11, the tracking
data were conducted using the ASLquad due to its response remains precise and only a minor influence
mechanical structure and the availability of a Vicon from the external disturbance is observed. In this
motion capture system. Fully autonomous solutions to experiment, the reference trajectory is equally sam-
such missions can be made feasible using advanced pled and a constant velocity is commanded with a zero
SLAM algorithms [53] and/or GPS data fusion. When acceleration profile. A similar experiment was con-
not mentioned otherwise, boxconstrained uncertain- ducted with the UPATTTR, where the turbulent wind
ties and the feedback predictions parametrization disturbance was produced by a 180W electric fan,
introduced in Section 3.1 are employed. For all the this time for a slowlyadvancing timestampedhelical
experimental testcases, the sampling time was set to trajectory. Due to the slowly advancing reference tra-
Ts = 0.08s for the ASLquad and Ts = 0.1s for the jectory and the constant presence of turbulent wind the
UPATTTR, the prediction horizon was set to N = 6 result is less smooth; however the achieved response
for both of them, while the following state and input by the RMPC remains robustly accurate, as shown
J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469 459

Fig. 11 Trajectory tracking

subject to wind disturbances
using the RMPC framework
applied to both ASLquad
and UPATTTR. The upper 0.5
plot corresponds to the 0.4
ASLquadbased 0.3
experiment, while the lower 0.2

plot refers to the 0.1

UPATTTR data. Video 0

results are available in the 0.1

supplementary video file 0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.2
0.6
0.4
0.4
0.6 0.2

0.8 0
0.2
1
0.4
1.2 0.6

0.5

0.5

1.5

0.5

0.8
0 0.6
0.4
0.2
0.5 0
0.2
0.4
0.6

in the lower part of Fig. 11. For these experimental
studies, as well as for all the other cases presented
within this paper, a video that contains recordings of
the flights is attached as a supplementary file.
Consequently, the capabilities of handling slung
loads were evaluated. As shown in Fig. 12 where
the external disturbance is applied onto the slung
load, as well as in Fig. 13 where the rotorcraft body
is forcibly disturbed, highly precise position hold
and disturbance rejection results were achieved for
both rotorcraft configurations. This is despite the fact
that the slung load introduces disturbances that are
phasedelayed compared to the vehicle states and the
controller is not augmented to incorporate the loads
motion. In the case of the ASLquad a 0.16 kg load was
utilized with a string length of 0.65 m, while for the
460 J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469

0.2
, r
xy
0.1 x
y

0.1

0.2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

r
z
1.1 z

0.9

0.8
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

0.5
r

0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

0.1
r

0.05

0.05

0.1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

0.2
xr,y
r
0.1 x
y
0

0.1

0.2
0 2 4 6 8 10

1.1
zr
1.05 z

0.95

0.9
0 2 4 6 8 10

0.1
r

0.05
r

0.05

0.1
0 2 4 6 8 10

0.1
r

0.05

0.05

0.1
0 2 4 6 8 10

Fig. 12 RMPC performance against disturbance of the slung experiment, while the four lower plots refer to the respec-
load which induces unpredicted disturbances on the vehi- tive UPATTTR experiment. Video results are available at the
cle. The four upper plots correspond to the ASLquadbased supplementary video file
J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469 461

0.5
x,yr
x
y

0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

r
z
1.1 z

0.9

0.8
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

0.3
r

0.2

0.1

0.1

0.2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

0.05
r

0.05
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

r
x ,yr
0.6 x
0.4 y

0.2
0
0.2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1.1
r
z
z

0.9
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

0.2
r

r


0

0.2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

0.1
r

0.1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Fig. 13 RMPC performance against disturbance of the vehi- while the four lower plots refer to the respective UPATTTR
cles body during slung load operations for both platforms. The experiment. Video results are available at the supplementary
four upper plots correspond to the ASLquadbased experiment, video file
462 J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469

UPATTTR a 0.33kg load, suspended at 0.45m, was
employed.
Once the capabilities of the proposed RMPC to
handle slung load operations even while subjected
to strong disturbances were verified, the problem of
trajectory tracking during slung load operations (i.e.
transportation and delivery of goods in a Search
andRescue scenario or as part of a product delivery
mission), was examined. Figure 14 presents the results
achieved when continuously tracking a square refer-
ence trajectory for 10 times while the same slung load
is attached onto the quadrotor platform. As shown,
efficient and robust results were derived, indicative
of the capabilities of the proposed control scheme
to effectively execute such operations. Similarly to
the helical trajectory tracking testcase, the reference
trajectory is equally sampled and a constant veloc-
ity is commanded with a zero acceleration profile.

Fig. 14 The upper part of

the figure presents
trajectory tracking during
slung load operations using
the ASLquad: the controller 1.5

tracks the same square 1.4

trajectory for 10 times with 1.3

minimal deviations from the 1.2

1.1
reference. The lower part of
1
the figure presents
0.9
trajectory tracking during 0.8
slung load operations using 0.7

the UPATTTR: the 0.6

controller tracks the same 0.5

square trajectory for 5 times

with minimal deviations
1
from the reference. Video
results are available at the
0.5
supplementary video file
0.6
0 0.4
0.2
0

0.5 0.2
0.4
0.6

1.5
1.4
1.3
1.2
1.1
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5

0.5

0.6
0 0.4
0.2
0
0.5 0.2
0.4
0.6
J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469 463

The UPATTTR was also employed to conduct an
analogous experiment, and the results are shown in
the bottom subset of Fig. 14. For both these exper-
iments, ballconstrained uncertainties are assumed,
and the multiparametric solution produces control
actions identical to that of the second order cone
programming problem formulated in Subsection 3.5.
In the last presented trajectory tracking experi-
ments, a slow response was commanded, as is typi-
cally expected during slung load operations. However,
more agile maneuvers could also be considered even
during slung load operations; such a sequence proves
indicative of the RMPC frameworks performance in
handling disturbances during a more aggressive oper-
ation. To this purpose, two yaxis step responses
were conducted. In the first case, a step reference of
1.25m was commanded with the velocity and attitude
references being conservatively set to 0. The results
are shown in Fig. 15 and as depicted, a satisfac-
tory response was derived although some overshoot
is observed. To alleviate this problem and even allow
more agile maneuvers, increased prediction horizon
and proper commanding of the velocity and attitude
profiles was considered. Towards employing a longer
prediction horizon (N = 16) while keeping the com-
putational complexity of the multiparametric problem
at a sufficiently low level, the alternative parametriza-
tion of the feedback predictions was employed. More-
over, in order to compute the velocity and attitude
profiles, a simulation of the closedloop response was
derived by employing a controller slightly more agile
than the one used in practice (higher penalization of
the Q matrices). The derived simulation response of
the velocity and attitude profiles were then fed to the
realvehicle along with the position step responses.
Figure 16 presents the new result for a 3m step
response and a peak velocity of more than 2m/s. As
shown, an improved response with no overshoot was
achieved.
In a similar direction, the UPATTTR was
employed to conduct an xstep response along the
directly actuated longitudinal dynamics during slung

0.2 r
x
0.1 x

0
0.1
0.2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

2
r
y
1.5
y
1

0.5

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

zr
1.1 z

0.9

0.8
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

0.4
r

0.2

0.2

0.4
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

0.1
r
0.05

0.05

0.1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Fig. 15 Lateral step response during slung load operations: minimal overshoot is observed. Video results are available at the
supplementary video file
464 J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469

xr
0.1
x
0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

4
yr
3 y

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1.5
zr
z

0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

0.4

0.2

0.2

0.4
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Fig. 16 Lateral fast step response during slung load operations with appropriate velocity and attitude references: no overshoot is
observed. Video results are available at the supplementary video file

load operations, and the recorded results are depicted
in Fig. 17. The step response presents practically no
overshoot while the employed velocities are relatively
low (due to the limitations of the onboard opticflow
based velocity estimation). Essentially this wide set
of experiments validates that such complex tasks may
be safely executed by relying on such robust flight
controls, even without the need for additional state
feedback and specialized controllers tailored to the
specific task. This is a major advantage that allows the
versatile operations of such aerial robots in a variety
of applications not fully defined during their design
phase.
As a third testcase, the scenario of colliding with
the environment is considered. In this scenario the
ASLquad is driven towards a reference point, with-
out knowledge of an obstacle that blocks its motion.
Consequently, the vehicle undergoes an undesired and
unpredicted collision with the environment. In such
a case, the robust control has to be able to provide
control actions that smoothly react and as long as
a protective shroud is available keep the vehicle in
contact with the environmental surface without tip-
ping over. Once such a behavior is ensured, a safe
maneuver to fly away from the obstacle may be exe-
cuted. As shown in Fig. 18 a safe physical interaction
response is achieved. It is noted that the reference is
set close to the obstacle, and therefore the approach-
ing velocity is small. If this is not the case, then
the main risk is related with harsh collisions, the
effect of which may be compensated with the design
of a compliant protective shroud and/or specialized
controllers [1].
Furthermore, obstacle avoidance capabilities of the
proposed RMPCframework were evaluated, utilizing
a testcase where prior knowledge of the environment
exists; the respective results are shown in Fig. 19.
For the purposes of this experiment the ASLquad
was employed, since ground truth data were available
from the Vicon external tracking system. As long as
the workspace map is known, a guarding polyhedron
Po , is defined and the augmented RMPC strategy is
applied. As demonstrated, a last resort obstacle avoid-
ance mechanism is achieved, ensuring the safety of
J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469 465

2
1.5 x
r

1 x
0.5
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

0.2
0.1 y
r

0 y
0.1
0.2
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

1.2
1.1 z
r

1 z
0.9
0.8
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

0.2 r
0.1
0
r

0.1
0.2
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

0.1
r

0
0.1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

Fig. 17 Lateral step response of the UPATTTR during slung load operations: a slow but with minimum overshoot response is derived.
Video results are available at the supplementary video file

the system. Note that complete onboard autonomy for The final testcase demonstration consists of a
the execution of such an experiment is feasible via the more comprehensive operational scenario for an
utilization of SLAM systems [53] or possibly GPS. unmanned rotorcraft platform: the ASLquad executes

Distance from the reference

Collision Obstacle
Position

Fig. 18 RMPCbased handling of unpredicted collisions with the environment. Video results are available at the supplementary video
file
466 J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469

Fig. 19 Evaluation of the

obstacle avoidance
capabilities that are
incorporated on the Robust
MPC framework. Video
results are available at the
supplementary video file

slung load navigation, while having to avoid an obsta-
cle, and additionally operating within a windy envi-
ronment. In this context, a collisionfree trajectory
is derived first using an implementation of the RRT
planner as presented in [26]. The computed reference
path is shown in blue color in Fig. 20. From a control
perspective, this example illustrates the RMPC capa-
bility to handle the slung load operation in a windy
environment, with the proposed framework providing
the advantage of having the presence of known obsta-
cles encoded and incorporated into the control compu-
tation structure, further augmenting the UASs flight
safety properties. While the RRT planner provides
an offline generated reference trajectory that does not
intrude into the obstacles polyhedric envelope, the
evolution of the online experiment provides no such

Fig. 20 Demonstration of a
complex mission: the
ASLquad tracks a collision
free trajectory computed
using RRT methods while
carrying a slung load in a
turbulent environment. The
external disturbances lead
to a deviation towards the
obstacles and the
augmented RMPC acts in
order to ensure that the
control actions drive the
vehicle back to the
collisionfree area. Video
results are available at the
supplementary video file
J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469
guarantees: at a specific time during navigation, the
vehicle enters the polyhedron that bounds the obstacle
as a consequence of the external distbances. Relying
on the obstacle avoidance capabilities of the RMPC,
the vehicle reacts accordingly and avoids the obsta-
cle in time. Furthermore, the helicopter is forcefully
disturbed during the path navigation using a stick.
5 Conclusions
The challenge of increasedreliability flight control
for rotorcraft UAS was addressed by the design, devel-
opment and experimental evaluation of a robust model
predictive control framework. The control scheme
ensures the minimum deviation for the worstcase dis-
turbance subject to the physical limitations of the sys-
tem was elaborated in theory, relaxations for efficient
convex optimizationbased solutions were discussed
and the principles for its realtime implementation in
explicit form were separately studied. The experimen-
tal implementation of the derived RMPC was evalu-
ated utilizing two unmanned rotorcraft configurations,
namely one employing the typical underactuated actu-
ation principle, and one characterized by the excep-
tional feature of direct actuation over its longitudinal
dynamics. The set of disturbance sources examined
included: wind gusts, external forceful disturbances
while additionally carrying slung loads, and physical
collisions. The derived results conclusively indicate
the disturbanceattenuation and responseprecision
effectiveness of the developed framework. The addi-
tional feature of obstacle avoidance was incorporated
into the control structure and experimentally studied,
resulting in sufficiently safe maneuvers while navigat-
ing into areas with obstacles. The overall evaluation
confirms the capacity of such a robust control strategy
to effectively handle forcible disturbances and ensure
the minimum possible deviation from a reference tra-
jectory, while respecting the imposed input and state
constraints.
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J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:443469 469

Dr. Kostas Alexis is a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher at the
Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Zurich working in the direc-
tion of flight control and autonomous planning for aerial robots.
Kostas obtained his PhD in the field of aerial robotics, con-
trol and collaboration from the University of Patras, Greece in
2011 and from the beginning of his research efforts he has been
the author of more than 40 scientific publications, has received
several best-paper awards in the field of control and has par-
ticipated in multiple large-scale, multi-million Euros research
projects. He is passionate about robotic research and appli-
cations and has the vision of facilitating aerial robots as an
integral part of a new kind of automation that operates within
the dynamic physical world.
Christos Papachristos is a PhD Candidate at the Electri-
cal & Computer Engineering Department of the University
of Patras (UPAT) in Greece. He works in the field of aerial
robotics, focusing on the design, implementation, flight con-
trol, autonomous state estimation, and perception of unmanned
aerial systems. He received his Diploma from the University
of Patras, Greece in 2009 and began his research on umnanned
tiltrotor systems in 2011 with 20 scientific publications and a
participation in large-scale research projects at the European
and National level.
Anthony Tzes is Professor of the Electrical & Computer Engi-
neering Department of the University of Patras (UPAT) in
Greece. He is a graduate of UPAT (85) and received his doctor-
ate from the Ohio State University (90). From 1990 till 1999 he
was with Polytechnic Institute of NYU. His research interests
include cooperative control of networked mobile robots, surgi-
cal robots, and control engineering applications. Prof. Tzes has
received research funding from various organizations including
NASA, the National (US) Science Foundation, and the Euro-
pean Union (FP6, H2020). He has been the a member of the
Greek committee of the European Control Association (EUCA),
member at several committees of the International Federa-
tion of Automatic Control (IFAC), and until 2008 Greeces
national representative to EUs FP7s thematic area Regions of
Knowledge, Research Potential and Coherent Development of
Policies. He has served in various positions (Program Chairman
(MIM00), Organizing Committee Chairman (ECC07), Chair-
man (MED2011)), and as IPC-member at several international
conferences. He is the leader and principal investigator of
the Applied Networked Mechatronics Systems group. He has
authored more than 70 (200) papers published in international
technical journals (conferences) and served in the editorial
board of several journals.

Roland Siegwart is full professor for autonomous systems at

ETH Zurich since July 2006. He has a Diploma in Mechani-
cal Engineering (1983) and PhD in Mechatronics (1989) from
ETH Zurich. In 1989/90 he spent one year as postdoctoral fel-
low at Stanford University. After that he worked part time as
R&D director at MECOS Traxler AG and as lecturer and deputy
head at the Institute of Robotics, ETH Zrich. In 1996 he was
appointed as associate and later full professor for autonomous
microsystems and robots at the Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de
Lausanne (EPFL). During his period at EPFL he was Deputy
Head of the National Competence Center for Research (NCCR)
on Multimodal Information Management (IM2), co-initiator
and founding Chairman of Space Center EPFL and Vice Dean
of the School of Engineering. In 2005 he hold a visiting posi-
tion at NASA Ames and Stanford University. Roland Siegwart
is member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences and
board member of the European Network of Robotics (EURON).
He served as Vice President for Technical Activities (2004/05)
and is currently Distinguished Lecturer (2006/07) and AdCom
Member (20072009) of the IEEE Robotics and Automation
Society. He is member of the Bewilligungsausschuss Exzellen-
zinitiative of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
He is coordinator of two European projects and co-founder of
several spin-off companies.