Adaptive Control for High-Performance Trajectory Tracking in Multirotor UAVs

This paper presents an adaptive position control law to achieve high-performance trajectory tracking in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Considering a hierarchical control scheme, the main contribution of this work is the design of an adaptive augmentation of a baseline position controller to account explicitly for aerodynamic effects. The adaptive augmentation allows for maintaining high-performance in situations where the baseline controller was not designed for or performs poorly. The results of experimental tests conducted using a small quadrotor are reported in order to compare the performance of the proposed design with respect to state-of-the-art non-predictive feedback controllers.