Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Flight control system design for a tandem rotor UAV robot in the presence of wind field disturbances

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Artificial Life and Robotics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper presents the flight control of coupling both the position and attitude for a tandem rotor UAV robot that has two 2-DOF tiltable coaxial rotors in the presence of wind field disturbance. The performance of the proposed computed torque control strategy showed some limitations considering the wind field disturbances in the previous study, in which the dynamical models of the proposed tandem rotor UAV robot and the model of the wind field disturbances have been discussed. To improve the flight performance of the UAV robot, a classical backstepping controller is designed and the system using this controller is proved to be asymptotically stabilized by the Lyapunov stability theory when not considering the external disturbance. Also, a robust backstepping controller for the UAV robot considering the wind field disturbances is proposed, which includes the integral of error in the Lyapunov function, together with using a saturation function in the controller. Finally, some numerical simulations are demonstrated to verify the performance of the proposed strategies for the UAV robot.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.

References

  1. Alotaibi ET, Alqefari SS, Koubaa A (2019) Lsar: Multi-uav collaboration for search and rescue missions. IEEE Access 7:55817–55832

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Flener C, Vaaja M, Jaakkola A, Krooks A, Kaartinen H, Kukko A, Kasvi E, Hyyppa H, Hyyppa J, Alho P (2013) Seamless mapping of river channels at high resolution using mobile LiDAR and UAV-photography. Remote Sens 5(12):6382–6407

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Nikolic J, Burri M, Rehder J, Leutenegger S, Huerzeler C, Siegwart R (2013) A UAV system for inspection of industrial facilities. In: Aerospace conference, 2013 IEEE, pp 1–8

  4. Bouabdallah S, Siegwart R (2007) Full control of a quadrotor. In: IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems, 2007, IROS 2007, San Diego, CA, USA, pp 153–158

  5. Rashad R, Goerres J, Aarts RG, Engelen JB, Stramigioli S (2020) Fully actuated multirotor UAVs: a literature review. IEEE Robot Autom Mag 27(3):97–107

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Kastelan D, Konz M, Rudolph J (2015) Fully actuated tricopter with pilot-supporting control. IFAC-PapersOnLine 48(9):79–84

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Xu X, Watanabe K, Nagai I (2020) Feedback linearization control for a tandem rotor UAV robot equipped with two 2-DOF tiltable coaxial-rotors. Artif Life Robot. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-020-00655-x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Zhou L, Zhang J, She H, Jin H (2019) Quadrotor UAV flight control via a novel saturation integral backstepping controller. Automatika 60(2):193–206

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Xu X, Watanabe K, Nagai I (2018) Development of an aerial robot that has multifunctional locomotion modes with tilted coaxial rotors. In: Proceedings of 2018 37th Chinese control conference (CCC), Wuhan, pp 7896–7900

  10. Li B, Wang D, Ma L (2019) BioTetra: a bioinspired multi-rotor aerial vehicle. In: Proceedings of IEEE international conference on robotics and biomimetics (ROBIO), Dali, China, pp 114–119

  11. Li YX, Yang GH (2016) Fuzzy adaptive output feedback faulttolerant tracking control of a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with nonaffine nonlinear faults. IEEE Trans Fuzzy Syst 24(1):223–234

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Abichandani P, Lobo D, Ford G, Bucci D, Kam M (2020) Wind measurement and simulation techniques in multi-rotor small unmanned aerial vehicles. IEEE Access 8:54910–54927. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2977693

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University, Okayama, 700-8530, Japan

    Xiongshi Xu, Keigo Watanabe & Isaku Nagai

  2. BAICIRS, Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT), Beijing, China

    Keigo Watanabe

Authors
  1. Xiongshi Xu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  2. Keigo Watanabe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  3. Isaku Nagai
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiongshi Xu.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This work was presented in part at the 26th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics (Online, January 21–23, 2021).

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Xu, X., Watanabe, K. & Nagai, I. Flight control system design for a tandem rotor UAV robot in the presence of wind field disturbances. Artif Life Robotics 26, 457–464 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-021-00704-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-021-00704-z

Keywords