Attitude stabilization control of a quadrotor UAV by using backstepping approach

Published version of an article in the journal: Mathematical Problems in Engineering. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/749803The modeling and attitude stabilization control problems of a four-rotor vertical takeoff and landing unmanned air vehicle (UAV) known as the quadrotor are investigated. The quadrotor's attitude is represented by the unit quaternion rather than Euler angles to avoid singularity problem. Taking dynamical behavior of motors into consideration and ignoring aerodynamic effect, a nonlinear controller is developed to stabilize the attitude. The control design is accomplished by using backstepping control technique. The proposed control law is based on the compensation for the Coriolis and gyroscope torques. Applying Lyapunov stability analysis proves that the closed-loop attitude system is asymptotic stable. Moreover, the controller can guarantee that all the states of the system are uniformly ultimately bounded in the presence of external disturbance torque. The effectiveness of the proposed control approach is analytically authenticated and also validated via simulation study. © 2014 Xing Huo et al