Hierarchical temporal sequence convergence in prescribed-time control for quadrotor UAVs under unknown dynamic disturbances

Abstract

This paper studies the trajectory tracking control problem for quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) under unknown disturbances and model uncertainties. A priori information about disturbances is required for most existing prescribed time-extended state observer (PTESO) methods. For unknown disturbances, a barrier function-based adaptive prescribed-time extended state observer (BFAPTESO) is designed by utilizing the time-domain transformation and adaptive mechanism in the prescribed time and using the barrier function method in the rest time. To improve tracking performance amidst model uncertainty, a finite-gain prescribed-time state observer (FGPTSO) is applied in the position loop. Then, the novel prescribed-time controllers are designed in conjunction with the above observers in the attitude and position loops. The proposed control scheme mitigates unknown dynamic disturbances and model uncertainties, guaranteeing that the tracking error achieves and sustains the preset accuracy within the prescribed time. Finally, numerical results indicate that the proposed control method is effective and robust.