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Adaptive robust trajectory tracking control with states-estimation for DJI-F450 quadrotor under multiple unknown disturbances

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2025

Nigar Ahmed Open the ORCID record for Nigar Ahmed [Opens in a new window]  and
Meng Joo Er
Nigar Ahmed
Affiliation:
Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Mobile Robotics, Dalian, China College of Marine Electrical Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China
Meng Joo Er*
Affiliation:
Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Mobile Robotics, Dalian, China College of Marine Electrical Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China
*
Corresponding author: Meng Joo Er; Email: mjer@dlmu.edu.cn
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Abstract

A quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) must achieve desired flight missions despite internal uncertainties and external disturbances. This paper proposes an adaptive trajectory tracking control method that attenuates unknown uncertainties and disturbances. Although the quadrotor is underactuated, a fully actuated controller is designed using backstepping control. To avoid repeated derivatives of control inputs, a dynamic surface method introduces a filter and auxiliary controller. Lyapunov criteria guide adaptive laws for tuning controller gain and filters. A low-power observer is integrated for state estimation. Additionally, a disturbance observer is developed and combined with the control scheme to handle unknown disturbances. Simulations on a DJI F450 quadrotor demonstrate that the proposed control algorithm offers strong trajectory-tracking performance and system stability under multiple uncertainties and external disturbances during flight.

Keywords

adaptive controlbackstepping controldisturbance observer-based controldynamic surface controlstate observer

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Type
Research Article
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The Journal of Navigation , First View , pp. 1 - 21
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Institute of Navigation

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