Attitude stabilization control of a quadrotor helicopter using integral Backstepping

Quadrotor helicopters are emerging as a popular platform for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) research. This work included integral action in a Backstepping design for attitude stabilization control of quadrotor helicopter. Firstly, a complete dynamic model of quadrotor was built using blade element and momentum theories. Based on this dynamic model a new controller called ‘Integral Backstepping’ was designed by added tracking error integral term to the normal Backstepping controller. Through various simulations and the real flight experiment, it is proved that the new controller was quite effective and the integral term indeed brought robustness against model uncertainties in the controller.