Attitude Control of a Quadrotor Using Model Free Based Sliding Model Controller

In this paper, a model free based sliding mode control (MFSMC) is developed to realize the attitude control of a quadrotor whose model contains the system uncertainties and external disturbances. Firstly, a model free based intelligent PD controller (iPD) which contains time-delay estimation is designed. The problem is that although the proposed design of the controller does not need to know the system model, but it exists the unknown dynamics estimation error. Then for the considered problem, the MFSMC is proposed. This referred controller which consists of three parts: the equivalent control law, exponent reaching law and correction control law, ensures the trajectories tracking. Finally, the proposed MFSMC method is validated on the quadrotor with system uncertainties and external disturbances and compared with classic PD and iPD control. The corresponding simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and performance of the MFSMC controller against the controllers of iPD and PD.