Position and attitude tracking of uncertain quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles based on non-singular terminal super-twisting algorithm

This paper proposes an improved non-singular terminal super-twisting control for the problem of position and attitude tracking of quadrotor systems suffering from uncertainties and disturbances. The super-twisting algorithm is a second-order sliding mode known to be a very effective control used to provide high precision and less chattering for uncertain nonlinear electromechanical systems. The proposed method is based on a non-singular terminal sliding surface with new exponent that solves the problem of singularity. The design procedure and the stability analysis of the closed-loop system using Lyapunov theory are detailed for the considered system. Finally, the proposed control scheme is tested in simulations and by experiments on the parrot-rolling spider quadrotor. Moreover, a comparison is made with the standard super-twisting algorithm in the simulation part. The results obtained show adequate performance in trajectory tracking and chattering reduction.