Energy-based Positioning Control of Underactuated Vehicles using Manifold Regulation

In this paper, we consider the problem of position regulation of a class of underactuated rigid-body vehicles that operate within a gravitational field and have fully-actuated attitude. The control objective is to regulate the vehicle position to a manifold of dimension equal to the underactuation degree. We address the problem using Port-Hamiltonian theory, and reduce the associated matching PDEs to a set of algebraic equations using a kinematic identity. The resulting method for control design is constructive. The point within the manifold to which the position is regulated is determined by the action of the potential field and the geometry of the manifold. We illustrate the performance of the controller for an unmanned aerial vehicle with underactuation degree two–-a quadrotor helicopter.