A generalized control method for a Tilt-rotor UAV stabilization

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are currently a very interesting field of research in the modern scientific community, especially in their application to military operations. In this paper we focus on the Tilt-rotor UAV. This is a UAV capable of Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL), with a rotor on each side of its airframe. Each rotor can be tilted independently to provide both lift and forward thrust to the rotor-craft. The Euler-Lagrange formulation is used to develop the model of the UAV. A key aspect in the design is the ability of the UAV to hover in one position. To that end, we design a back-stepping based proportional-derivative (PD) controller. The generalized structure of the proposed controller makes it easy to derive the equations of force and torque. Simulations demonstrate that the controller is capable of stabilizing the UAV. We also highlight its ability to track continuous trajectories. © 2012 IEEE.