Adaptive backstepping trajectory tracking control without velocity measurements for quadrotor UAVs under multiple unknown disturbances Adaptive backstepping trajectory tracking control

• Published in: International journal of dynamics and control Vol. 13; no. 9
• Main Authors: Ahmed, Nigar, Hajlaoui, Khalil, Ma, Maode
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 27.08.2025
• Subjects: Complexity; Control; Control and Systems Theory; Dynamical Systems; Engineering; Vibration; Robust control; Turbulence; Unmanned aerial vehicle; Aggressive maneuvers; Disturbance observer
• ISSN: 2195-268X; 2195-2698
• DOI: 10.1007/s40435-025-01805-4

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) quadrotor, subject to various unknown disturbances, must be capable of performing both aggressive and non-aggressive maneuvers. Therefore, this paper presents an adaptive backstepping trajectory tracking control technique without velocity measurements for quadrotor UAVs subject to multiple nonlinear disturbances. Despite the quadrotor’s underactuated dynamical model, this paper explores a fully actuated controller for trajectory tracking in a 3D plane. Initially, a tracking error is defined, and the dynamic surface method is employed to derive a filter and auxiliary controller, addressing the requirement for repeated derivatives of the control input. Subsequently, a Lyapunov candidate function is introduced to derive adaptive laws for tuning the control parameters of the auxiliary controller and filter, ensuring stability of the error dynamics. Additionally, a high-gain observer is designed for state estimation and integrated with the controller to achieve the control objectives. For disturbance attenuation, a disturbance observer is designed and integrated into the control scheme for estimation and rejection of von K a ´ rm a ´ n turbulence and noises modeled by Gaussian distribution and uniformly random distribution. Stability analysis, based on Lyapunov criteria, and simulation study, using the DJI F450 quadrotor, validate the effectiveness and stability of the proposed controller.