MPC with Nonlinear H ∞ Control for Path Tracking of a Quad-Rotor Helicopter

Abstract: This paper presents a predictive and nonlinear robust control strategy to solve the path tracking problem for a quadrotor helicopter. The dynamic motion equations are obtained by the Lagrange-Euler formalism. The control structure is performed through a model-based predictive controller (MPC) to track the reference trajectory and a nonlinear H ∞ controller to stabilize the rotational movements. Simulations results in presence of aerodynamic disturbances and parametric uncertainty are presented to corroborate the effectiveness and the robustness of the proposed strategy. Copyright c © 2008 IFAC. 1