Energy based 3D trajectory tracking control of quadrotors with model-free based on-line disturbance compensation

In this work, a Revisited form of the so-called Model-Free Control (R-MFC) is derived. Herein, the MFC principle is employed to deal with the unknown part of a plant only (i.e., unmodeled dynamics, disturbances, etc.) and occurs beside an Interconnection and Damping Assignment-Passivity Based Control (IDA-PBC) strategy. Using the proposed formulation, it is shown that we can significantly improve the performance of the control through the reshaping properties of the IDA-PBC technique. Moreover, the control robustness level is increased via a compensation of the time-varying disturbances and the unmodeled system dynamics. This on-line compensation capability is provided by the MFC principle. The problem is studied in the case of Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) mechanical systems with an explicit application to a small Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) where a stability analysis is also provided. Numerical simulations have shown satisfactory results, in comparison with some other control strategies, where an in-depth discussion with respect to the control performance is highlighted by considering several scenarios and using several metrics.