Modeling and robust adaptive control for a coaxial twelve-rotor UAV

Compared with the quad-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the coaxial twelve-rotor UAV has stronger load carrying capacity, higher driving ability and stronger damage resistance. This paper focuses on its robust adaptive control. First, a mathematical model of a coaxial twelve-rotor is established. Aiming at the problem of model uncertainty and external disturbance of the coaxial twelve-rotor UAV, the attitude controller is innovatively adopted with the combination of a backstepping sliding mode controller (BSMC) and an adaptive radial basis function neural network (RBFNN). The BSMC combines the advantages of backstepping control and sliding mode control, which has a simple design process and strong robustness. The RBFNN as an uncertain observer, can effectively estimate the total uncertainty. Then the stability of the twelve-rotor UAV control system is proved by Lyapunov stability theorem. Finally, it is proved that the robust adaptive control strategy presented in this paper can overcome model uncertainty and external disturbance effectively through numerical simulation and prototype of twelve-rotor UAV tests. Copyright © by HIGH TECHNOLOGY LETTERS PRESS.