Dual Quaternion Delay Compensating Maneuver Regulation for Fully Actuated UAVs

Abstract

In aerial robotics, path following constitutes a popular task requiring a vehicle to pursue a given trajectory. Resting upon the fulfillment of a desired time law, trajectory tracking techniques often turn out to be ineffective in presence of external disturbances, favoring the adoption of maneuver regulation strategies wherein the desired trajectory is parameterized in terms of the path-variable. In this scenario, this work proposes a new delay-compensating maneuver regulation controller for fully actuated aerial vehicles, whose aim is to guarantee the perfect tracking of a given path in the shortest time interval. The innovative aspect of such a solution relies on the introduction of a recovery term that compensates for possible delays in the task execution. The dual-quaternion formalism is adopted to model the dynamics of the aerial platforms allowing feedback linearization of the whole system, including both position and attitude, with a single controller. The tests conducted in Gazebo physics simulator show that the proposed controller outperforms the popular trajectory tracking PID regulators.