Robust Backstepping-Sliding Control of a Quadrotor UAV with Disturbance Compensation

Quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles (QUAVs) are widely used in civil and defense applications, yet reliable trajectory tracking remains challenging under external disturbances and limited sensing. Conventional backstepping–sliding mode controllers ensure robustness only by selecting discontinuous gains larger than the disturbance bound, which increases chattering and limits the use of smooth switching functions. This paper addresses these limitations by integrating explicit disturbance compensation into a backstepping–sliding framework through a super-twisting observer (STO). The STO reconstructs matched disturbances acting on the translational and rotational dynamics in real time, and the estimated signals are directly injected into the control law. This approach enables effective disturbance rejection beyond the nominal sliding gain while preserving robustness under smooth control actions. Simulation results under single- and multi-frequency perturbations demonstrate accurate disturbance reconstruction (FIT indices above 95%), improved tracking performance, and a significant reduction in chattering. The proposed strategy provides a robust control solution for QUAVs operating in uncertain environments.