International Journal of Control, Vol.80, No.5, 666-683, 2007
Position control of a ducted fan VTOL UAV in crosswind
This paper describes a control strategy to stabilize the position of a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in crosswind despite unknown aerodynamic effects. The proposed approach overcomes the problem of gyroscopic coupling by taking advantage of both the structure of the thrust mechanism, which is made of two counter rotating propellers, and the control strategy which involves a decoupling of the yaw rate dynamics from the rest of the system dynamics. The controller is designed by means of backstepping techniques that allow the stabilization of the vehicle's position while online estimating the unknown aerodynamic effects.