Geometric Tracking Control of a Quadrotor UAV on SE(3) for Extreme Maneuverability

This paper provides new results for the tracking control of a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The dynamics of the quadrotor UAV are expressed globally on the configuration manifold of the special Euclidean group, and we construct geometric controllers to track outputs that correspond to each of three flight modes, namely (1) almost global asymptotic tracking of the attitude of the quadrotor UAV, (2) almost global asymptotic tracking of the position of the center of mass of the quadrotor UAV, and (3) almost global asymptotic tracking of the velocity of the center of mass of the quadrotor UAV. Since the control approach is coordinate-free, it completely avoids singularities and complexities that arise when using local coordinates. Based on a hybrid control architecture, we show that the proposed control system can generate complex acrobatic maneuvers of a quadrotor UAV.