Bounded control of a flapping wing micro drone in three dimensions

This paper presents a bounded control of a flapping micro aerial vehicle (MAV) in three dimensions. First, a simplified model of the flapping MAV is presented aiming to test the control law. The averaging theory shows that for high frequency systems, only the mean aerodynamic forces and torques over a period affect the movement of the body. Therefore, a bounded nonlinear state feedback control, calculated using the averaged model, is applied to the time varying system in order to stabilize it at a desired position in hovering mode. The robustness of the control is tested with respect to the aerodynamic coefficient and to external disturbances.