Nonlinear Balance Control of an Inverted Pendulum on a Tilt-rotor UAV∗

This paper proposes a cascade nonlinear control strategy to solve the problem of balancing an inverted pendulum using a Tilt-rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle while tracking a desired position reference. For the present study, the aim is to maintain both the aircraft and the pendulum stable throughout the whole trajectory, even in the presence of parametric uncertainties and measurement errors. The system is modeled via Euler-Lagrange formulation considering both the dynamics of the Tilt-rotor UAV and the pendulum. As for the nonlinear control design, a three-level cascade strategy is proposed. Each level of the cascade system executes a control law designed through the method of input-output feedback linearization. Simulation results are carried out to corroborate the proposed control strategy.