Robust active disturbance rejection control for systems with internal uncertainties: Multirotor UAV application

Abstract Active Disturbance Rejection Control (ADRC) has recently stood out as a viable alternative to the proportional–integral–derivative controllers. An interesting field of application of this approach is the control of multirotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) which are inevitably subject to various force and torque disturbances. What makes ADRC attractive is the enhanced trajectory tracking and disturbance rejection capabilities that it allows while requiring minimal knowledge about the system. Although in theory, large uncertainties on the few required system parameters do not affect the stability of the ADRC's closed‐loop, they cause performance deterioration and can lead to dangerous oscillations that result in instability in practice. In this study, we design a robust ADRC for multirotor UAVs that allows maintaining the performance despite large parameter variations, without changing the initial control gains tuning. Simulation and experimental results support the theoretical findings.