Backstepping-based supertwisting sliding mode attitude control for a quadrotor aircraft subjected to wind disturbances: experimental validation

Quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles are increasingly explored due to their potential applications in many daily activities, including surveillance, cinematography, product delivery, and so on. Designing a flight control system for such a vehicle is very challenging because of its nonlinear dynamics and its sensitivity to the influence of disturbances. To meet part of this challenge, here a robust backstepping supertwisting sliding mode control (BSTSMC) has been developed to achieve a good tracking of the targeted trajectories. The proposed flight control system can drive the quadrotor's attitude to their reference values rapidly and, at the same time, reduce the impact of external perturbations and model inaccuracies. Experimental tests on an X450 quadrotor were performed to prove the practicality and disturbance rejection capability of the suggested control scheme.