Multi-mode flight sliding mode control system for a quadrotor

There is a wide range of applications for unmanned aerial vehicles that requires the capability of having several and robust flight controllers available. This paper presents the main framework of a multi-mode flight control system for a quadrotor based on the super twisting control algorithm. The design stages for the four flight control modes encompassing manual, altitude, GPS fixed and autonomous mode are presented. The stability proof for each flight mode is carried out by means of Lyapunov functions while the stability analysis for the complete system, when a transition from one mode to another occurs, is demonstrated using the switching nonlinear systems theory. The performance of the proposed framework is demonstrated in a simulation study taking into account external disturbances.