Geometric tracking control of a multi‐rotor UAV for partially known trajectories

Abstract This article presents a trajectory‐tracking controller for multi‐rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in scenarios where only the desired position and heading are known without the higher‐order derivatives. The proposed solution modifies the state‐of‐the‐art geometric controller, effectively addressing challenges related to the non‐existence of the desired attitude and ensuring positive total thrust input for all time. We tackle the additional challenge of the non‐availability of the higher derivatives of the trajectory by introducing novel nonlinear filter structures. We formalize theoretically the effect of these filter structures on the system error dynamics. Subsequently, through a rigorous theoretical analysis, we demonstrate that the proposed controller leads to uniformly ultimately bounded system error dynamics. To demonstrate the controller's effectiveness and potential to enhance multi‐rotor performance and reliability in practical applications, we present a simulation study considering two examples with time‐varying trajectories.