A Robust Inner and Outer Loop Control Method for Trajectory Tracking of a Quadrotor

In order to achieve the complicated trajectory tracking of quadrotor, a geometric inner and outer loop control scheme is presented. The outer loop generates the desired rotation matrix for the inner loop. To improve the response speed and robustness, a geometric SMC controller is designed for the inner loop. The outer loop is also designed via sliding mode control (SMC). By Lyapunov theory and cascade theory, the closed-loop system stability is guaranteed. Next, the tracking performance is validated by tracking three representative trajectories. Then, the robustness of the proposed control method is illustrated by trajectory tracking in presence of model uncertainty and disturbances. Subsequently, experiments are carried out to verify the method. In the experiment, ultra wideband (UWB) is used for indoor positioning. Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is used for fusing inertial measurement unit (IMU) and UWB measurements. The experimental results show the feasibility of the designed controller in practice. The comparative experiments with PD and PD loop demonstrate the robustness of the proposed control method.