Improved Adaptive-Gain Super-Twisting Sliding Mode Control of Transmission Line Inspection UAVs

This paper presents an improved adaptive-gain super-twisting sliding mode control method for transmission line inspection unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to track desired trajectories in the presence of external disturbances. A cascaded control structure is designed to compute the desired accelerations using the proposed controller, which are then utilized to determine the desired orientation and angular rates. By dynamically adjusting the gains in the controllers, the chattering problem is effectively suppressed, and the system's transient performance and robustness are significantly enhanced. Furthermore, using Lyapunov function theory, the finite-time stability of the system is rigorously proven. Finally, simulation studies demonstrate the effectiveness and superior performance of the proposed method.