Integrated path planning and trajectory tracking control for quadrotor UAVs with obstacle avoidance in the presence of environmental and systematic uncertainties: Theory and experiment

• Published in: Aerospace science and technology Vol. 120; p. 107277
• Main Authors: Wang, Ban, Zhang, Youmin, Zhang, Wei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Masson SAS 01.01.2022
• Subjects: Adaptive sliding mode control; Flight experiment; Model uncertainty; Path planning; Trajectory tracking control; Unmanned aerial vehicle; Path planning; Adaptive sliding mode control; Unmanned aerial vehicle; Model uncertainty; Flight experiment; Trajectory tracking control
• ISSN: 1270-9638; 1626-3219
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ast.2021.107277

This paper proposes an innovative integrated path planning and trajectory tracking control framework for a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in the presence of environmental and systematic uncertainties to achieve integrated guidance and control. Firstly, in order to perform real-time path planning, a computationally cost-effective planning algorithm is designed to find an optimal and smooth path while avoiding both static and dynamic obstacles. Then, by employing the pure-pursuit path following approach, the generated geometric path is converted to a trajectory profile related to time, which serves as the reference commands for the low-level trajectory tracking controller. Finally, a novel adaptive sliding mode trajectory tracking controller is proposed to compensate model uncertainties and maintain the desired tracking performance for the studied quadrotor UAV. With the proposed adaptive schemes, overestimation of uncertain parameters can be avoided, which further contributes to avoiding control chattering of the system. The performance of the proposed framework is validated through comparative simulation and experimental tests based on a quadrotor UAV subject to model uncertainties and environmental obstacles, which confirms the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed approach for practical applications.