Intelligent Robust Motion Control of Aerial Robot

This study presents the design of an intelligent robust controller for the 3-degree-of-freedom motion of an aerial robot using waterpower. The proposed controller consists of two parts: (1) an anti-windup super-twisting algorithm that provides stability to the system under actuator saturation; and (2) a fully adaptive radial basis function neural network that estimates and compensates for unexpected influences, i.e., system uncertainties, water hose vibration, and external disturbances. The stability of the entire closed-loop system is analyzed using the Lyapunov stability theory. The controller parameters are optimized such that the effect of these unexpected influences on the control system is minimized. This optimization problem is interpreted in the form of an eigenvalue problem, which is solved using the method of centers. Experiments are conducted where a proportional-integral-derivative controller and a conventional sliding mode controller are deployed for comparison. The results demonstrate that the proposed control system outperforms the others, with small tracking errors and strong robustness against unexpected influences.