Explicit Model Predictive Cascade-Free Direct Force and Torque Control of Quadrotors

High-performance control of quadrotors' force and torques is the basis for achieving excellent trajectory tracking. However, the conventional method indirectly controls the force and torques by controlling four permanent magnet synchronous motors' speeds, resulting in poor dynamic performance and static deviations when pneumatic parameters mismatch. Dedicated to achieving high-dynamic and high-accuracy control of force and torques, an explicit model predictive (EMP) cascade-free direct force and torque control method is proposed. First, defining force current and torque currents, whereby a new structure is proposed. Then, dynamics of the quadrotor and motor are fused to design the linear robust predictive models of force and torques. Accordingly, the EMP controller is constructed to replace the traditional cascaded speed solution module and four speed controllers uniformly. The EMP controller generates the optimal current commands directly from the force and torque commands, realizing direct control without the speed loop. The new structure makes it possible to solve the pneumatic parameter mismatch problem with an auxiliary extended state observer, obtaining offset-free control. The proposed method optimizes the dynamic performance and steady-state accuracy of force and torques and improves the system's robustness. Finally, the proposed method's feasibility is verified by experiments.