Geometric flight control of a hovering robotic hummingbird

Controlled hovering of motor driven flapping wing micro aerial vehicles (FWMAVs) is challenging due to its limited control authority, large inertia, vibration produced by wing strokes, and limited components accuracy due to fabrication methods. In this work, we present a hummingbird inspired FWMAV with 12 grams of weight and 20 grams of maximum lift. We present its full non-linear dynamic model including the full inertia tensor, non-linear input mapping, and damping effect from flapping counter torques (FCTs) and flapping counter forces (FCFs). We also present a geometric flight controller to ensure exponentially stable and globally exponential attractive properties. We experimentally demonstrated the vehicle lifting off and hover with attitude stabilization.