Joint State-Parameter Observer-Based Robust Control of a UAV for Heavy Load Transportation

Special Session: Hybrid and Convertible Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. This paper proposes a joint state-parameter observer-based controller for trajectory tracking of an octocopter unmanned aerial vehicle (OUAV), for transportation of a heavy load with unknown mass and size. The multi-body dynamic model of the OUAV with a rigidly attached load is obtained, effectively considering the effects of the load parameters into the dynamics of the system. A robust nonlinear \(\mathcal {W}_\infty \) control strategy is designed for optimal trajectory tracking of the OUAV, with information of the states and load parameters provided by a joint estimation unscented Kalman filter. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is corroborated by numerical results.