Aggressive Perching of Quadrotor Using Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion Control

This paper addresses the accurate tracking problem for quadrotors subject to aggressive maneuvers with position and attitude constraints. A new control scheme is proposed based on incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion (INDI), which mainly consists of a position tracking controller and an aggressive attitude tracking controller. The controller precisely linearizes the nonlinear dynamics into a linear input-output map in an incremental form and tracks trajectory as well as its derivatives of up to fourth-order. The angular errors are calculated by quaternion without small angle approximations to reach a feasible control law in a large angle attitude. The dynamically feasible three-dimensional trajectories are planned with specified corridors and constraints on positions, velocities, and attitudes. The numerical simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller compared to the conventional approach. Moreover, real flight tests are conducted with our quadrotor, and the proposed approach is validated by successfully perching on a vertical surface.