Recent Developments and Trends in Unconventional UAVs Control: A Review

During the previous years, one of the biggest challenges in the field of unconventional drones is the control of these systems due to their special shape and morphological complexities. Among the potential advantages of these drones is their variable and adaptable morphology in flight. Nevertheless, these structural advantages make their control a complex task and different to the ordinary drone. Hence, the key point of this manuscript is to present a wide overview related to the main recent advances in techniques and control architectures used for this new class of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Furthermore, the control strategies applied on these particular vehicles will be explored in depth, where the principal constraints, advantages, proposed solutions and the findings of each work, will be examined, discussed and synthesized. The large number of the control architectures and schemes proposed by the authors in this area will be also analyzed in this review. Lastly, prevalent challenges, future research directions and trends will be addressed at the end of this paper.