Dynamic Smooth Sliding Control Applied to UAV Trajectory Tracking

This paper proposes a sliding mode controller with smooth control effort for a class of nonlinear plants. The proposed controller is created by allowing some constant parameters of the earlier smooth sliding control (SSC) to vary as a function of the output tracking error, improving the control chattering alleviation in practical implementations. Furthermore, during the sliding mode, the new scheme can synthesize a range of controllers, such as fixed gain PI controllers and approximations of the standard Super-Twisting Algorithm (STA), as well as, the variable gain Super-Twisting Algorithm (VGSTA). A complete closed-loop stability analysis is provided. In addition, realistic simulation results with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) model, incorporating aerodynamic effects and internal closed-loop controllers, are obtained and validated via experiments with a commercial hexacopter.