Model Predictive Path Following Control of a Quadrotor in Constrained Environments

To implement the flight mission of going through a gap for a quadrotor, this paper presents an model predictive control strategy to track a safe geometric path in output spaces of the system subject to input and state constraints without pre-specified timing requirements. Specifically, we propose a model predictive path following control (MPFC) algorithm to this constrained path-following (PF) problem without the forward velocity assignment. The closed-loop stability and feasibility based on terminal regions and end penalties are analyzed by the dual mode strategy. Finally, three case studies are given to evaluate the proposed algorithm. The first one is for the precise path following test. The second one is for the confinement performance test. The third one is for the forward velocity assignment comparison test in the predetermined flight mission simulation. The results demonstrate efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.