Guidance Navigation and Control for Quadrotor UAV Using Lyapunov-Based Backstepping

Quadrotor UAVs present a significant control challenge due to their underactuated nature; strong coupling effects; nonlinear dynamics; and high sensitivity to unknown effect parameters, external disturbances, and uncertainties. To address this issue, this study proposes a Lyapunov-based backstepping (LYP) controller that ensures robust stability and precise trajectory tracking. The controller employs an inner- and outer-loop architecture for coupled position and attitude control. Its performance is compared with Proportional–Integral–Derivative (PID) and Fractional-Order PID (FOPID) controllers under three scenarios: nominal conditions, external disturbances, and model parameter uncertainties. All controller gains are optimized using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). Simulation results, which are evaluated using time-domain metrics and root mean square error (RMSE), demonstrate that the proposed LYP controller achieves superior robustness, faster disturbance rejection, and improved tracking accuracy compared to both PID and FOPID controllers.