Control of the PVTOL with Strong Input Coupling

This paper studies the modeling and control of a Planar Vertical Take-Off and Landing (PVTOL) with steerable thruster. A longitudinal model is obtained using Newton’s second law for the PVTOL which evolves in 3 degrees of freedom and has two control inputs. The aerial vehicle is driven by steerable propulsion controlling its evolution in the vertical plane through the thrust and torque control inputs, which drive the vehicle body and generate a rotation. The obtained model is nonlinear and is significantly different with respect to the well-known PVTOL. For this reason, different control algorithms are presented, and the closed-loop behavior is studied for each of them. The proposed control strategies perform a stationary flight at a desired altitude and control the position of the aerial vehicle. The performance of the proposed control algorithms is tested in numerical simulations.