Experimental Validation of an Integral Sliding Mode-Based LQG for the Pitch Control of a UAV-mimicking Platform

Abstract

In this paper, an enhanced Integral Sliding Mode-based Linear Quadratic Gaussian (ISM-LQG) controller has been proposed and verified in real-time on a Twin Rotor multi-input-multi-output MIMO System (TRMS). A TRMS serves as a suitable laboratory-based platform to evaluate the performance of control algorithms for complex Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems such as rotocraft. In the proposed scheme, an ISM enhancement to an LQG has been introduced, which attempts to overcome modelling inaccuracies and uncertainties. The novelty of the proposed control law lies in hybridizing a robust control approach with an optimal control law to achieve improved performance. Experimental results on the TRMS demonstrate that the ISM-LQG strategy significantly improves the tracking performance of the TRMS pitch and hence confirm the applicability and efficiency of the proposed scheme.