Cascaded control for balancing an inverted pendulum on a flying quadrotor

This paper focuses on the flying inverted pendulum problem, i.e balancing a pendulum on a flying vehicle. After analyzing the system dynamic, a three loop cascade control strategy based on active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) is proposed. Not only the pendulum balancing, but also the trajectory tracking of the vehicle can be realized successfully even when strong disturbances exist. The simulation results from a 3D mechanical systems simulation platform including a comparison to a LQR controller are given to verify the control performance and robustness of the proposed strategy. Finally, the practical flying experiments are achieved in our lab.