An integral predictive/nonlinear H∞ control structure for a quadrotor helicopter

This paper presents an integral predictive and nonlinear robust control strategy to solve the path following problem for a quadrotor helicopter. The dynamic motion equations are obtained by the Lagrange-Euler formalism. The proposed control structure is a hierarchical scheme consisting of a model predictive controller (MPC) to track the reference trajectory together with a nonlinear H-infinity controller to stabilize the rotational movements. In both controllers the integral of the position error is considered, allowing the achievement of a null steady-state error when sustained disturbances are acting on the system. Simulation results in the presence of aerodynamic disturbances, parametric and structural uncertainties are presented to corroborate the effectiveness and the robustness of the proposed strategy. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.