Robust Designated-Time Tracking Control Strategy for Quadrotor Autonomous Aerial Vehicle Subject to Disturbances and Input Saturation

This article aims to address the robust designated-time tracking control problem for quadrotor autonomous aerial vehicles (AAVs). The difficulty is to maintain the tracking error between the quadrotor’s position/attitude and the expected signal within a pre-specified, time-varying restriction during the entire operation process, while compensating multiple external disturbances and dealing with input saturation. Utilizing a set of time-based barrier functions tied to tracking accuracy and convergence time, we develop a continuous bounded controller by combining multiple designated-time disturbance observers with anti-windup compensators. Unlike existing tracking approaches for quadrotor AAVs, our method ensures that the tracking error reaches a predefined compact set within a designated time, while also avoiding excessive overshoot and transient oscillations, and maintaining uniform boundedness of signals in the closed-loop system. Simulations on quadrotor AAVs are performed to validate the efficacy and advantages of the proposed approach.