J Intell Robot Syst
DOI 10.1007/s10846-014-0072-3
Enhanced Backstepping Controller Design with Application
to Autonomous Quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
Mohd Ariffanan Mohd Basri ·
Abdul Rashid Husain ·
Kumeresan A. Danapalasingam
Received: 23 April 2014 / Accepted: 16 June 2014
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Abstract Quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)
is an underactuated multi-input and multi-output
(MIMO) system which has nonlinear dynamic behav-
ior such as high coupling degree and unknown nonlin-
earities. It is a great challenge to design a quadrotor
control system due to these features. In this paper,
the contribution is focused on the backstepping-based
robust control design of the quadrotor UAV. Firstly,
the dynamic model of the aerial vehicle is mathemati-
cally formulated. Then, a robust controller is designed
for the stabilization and tracking control of the vehi-
cle. The developed robust control system comprises a
backstepping and a proportional-derivative (PD) con-
troller. Backstepping is a recursive design methodol-
ogy that uses Lyapunov theorem which can guarantee
the stability of the nominal model system, while PD
control is used to attenuate the effects caused by sys-
tem uncertainties. For the problem of determining
the backstepping control parameters, particle swarm
optimization (PSO) algorithm has been employed. In
addition, the genetic algorithm (GA) technique is also
adopted for the purpose of performance comparison
with PSO scheme. Finally, the designed controller
M. A. Mohd Basri () · A. R. Husain ·
K. A. Danapalasingam
Department of Control and Mechatronics,
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi
Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
e-mail: ariffanan@fke.utm.my
is experimentally evaluated on a quadrotor simula-
tion environment to demonstrate the effectiveness and
merits of the theoretical development.
Keywords Quadrotor UAV · Robust control ·
Backstepping · Particle swarm optimization
1 Introduction
Nowadays, the application of modern control theory
to UAV is one of the most appealing topics among
the research control community [1].The arises of this
interest is due to the utilization of UAV in a variety of
civil and military applications such as forest fire detec-
tion, traffic surveillance, oil pipeline inspection, area
mapping, weather monitoring, wildfire monitoring,
aerial payload delivery, search and rescue operations,
border patrolling etc. UAV can also be very impor-
tant and useful when the desired tasks are executed in
a dangerous or inaccessible environment for humans,
for instance, in nuclear or chemical facilities, volca-
noes and flooding areas, to name a few. Generally,
during these missions high maneuverability of the air-
craft and robustness of the control algorithm with
respect to uncertainties and disturbances such as wind
is required.
The UAV can be classified into two categories:
fixed-wing aircraft and rotary-wing aircraft. When
compared with fixed-wing aircrafts, rotary-wing air-
crafts have advantageous characteristic which is the

Fig. 1 Quadrotor UAV configuration
ability to take off and land vertically in a limited space.
Moreover, such types of aircrafts are able to hover at
a fixed point that makes them suitable for applications
that may be impossible to be performed using fixed-
wing aircrafts [2]. There are many different types of
rotary-wing aircrafts, such as conventional helicopter,
the twin rotor or tandem rotor helicopter, the coax-
ial rotor helicopter and quadrotor helicopter. In this
paper, it was decided to work on a vertical take-off
and landing (VTOL) UAV in the quadrotor configura-
tion due to its design advantageous. Quadrotors have
the advantage over conventional helicopters as they
can be controlled by varying the speed of the rotors.
Thus, fixed-pitch blades can be used and mechanical
Fig. 2 The movements of a
quadrotor: the arrow width
is proportional to rotor
speeds
J Intell Robot Syst
Fig. 3 Depiction of the velocity and position updates in PSO
linkages to vary the rotor blade pitch angle are not
required. This simplifies the design of the vehicle, and
reduces maintenance time and cost. Besides, a quadro-
tor aircraft is much safer in terms of the rotors, which
are smaller and can be enclosed. This makes the vehi-
cles safer to interact with in close proximity and flight
with low risk of damaging the vehicle, its operators, or
its surroundings. Furthermore, quadrotors is an omni-
directional type vehicle, and has almost no constraints
on its motion. It can be flown in tight spaces and
does not require large safety distances to operate. One
drawback is that this type of UAV presents a weight
and energy consumption augmentation due to the extra
motors, but the payload-to-power ratio is still advan-
tageous. These characteristics make the quadrotor a
good candidate to be utilized in the real life.
Nevertheless, these kinds of UAV is an underac-
tuated multi-input and multi-output (MIMO) system
which has nonlinear dynamic behavior such as high
J Intell Robot Syst

coupling degree and unknown nonlinearities. These
features make the controlling of the quadrotor a
very challenging problem. Therefore, an advanced
control strategy is required to achieve good perfor-
mance in autonomous flight with high maneuverabil-
ity and robustness with respect to system uncertain-
ties and external disturbances. Theoretically, many
methods have been proposed to control a quadrotor
UAV, such as linear quadratic regulator (LQR) con-
trol [3], proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control
[4], fuzzy logic (FL) control [5], sliding mode control
[6], backstepping control [7–10] and adaptive control
[11–13].
In this paper, the backstepping technique has
been used for stabilization and trajectory tracking of
quadrotor UAV. The backstepping control scheme is a
nonlinear control method based on the Lyapunov theo-
rem. The backstepping control design techniques have
received great attention because of its systematic and
recursive design methodology for nonlinear feedback
control [14–21]. Unlike the feedback linearization
method with the problems such as the precise model
requirement and the cancellation of useful nonlinear
terms, the backstepping approach offers a choice of
design tools for accommodation of nonlinearities, and
can avoid unwanted cancellations. The advantage of
backstepping compared with other control methods
lies in its design flexibility, due to its recursive use
of Lyapunov functions. The key idea of the backstep-
ping design is to select recursively some appropriate
state variables as virtual inputs for lower dimension
subsystems of the overall system and the Lyapunov
functions are designed for each stable virtual con-
troller [22]. Therefore, the final designed actual con-
trol law can guarantee the stability of total control
system.
The backstepping method can provide a desired
level of control system performance. However, it is
just limited to the nominal system i.e. the system
dynamics and the external disturbance are exactly
known. To overcome this drawback, a robust back-
stepping control (RBC) system has been proposed.
The developed RBC system comprises a backstep-
ping and a PD controller. Here, the PD controller
is used to attenuate the effects caused by external
disturbances. Compared with only the backstepping
control scheme [7], the present control approach has
the advantages of robust control, which makes this
approach attractive for a wide class of nonlinear sys-
tems with the influences of external disturbances. In
order to solve the problem of determining the control
design parameters, particle swarm optimization (PSO)
algorithm has been used. PSO is one of the modern
heuristic algorithms based on population optimiza-
tion algorithm which is first introduced by Kennedy
and Eberhart [23]. The method has been motivated

Fig. 4 Pseudo-code of the

PSO algorithm PSO pseudo-code

01: begin
02: Randomly initialize particles swarm
03: while (number of iterations, or the stopping criterion is not met)
04: Evaluate fitness function of particle swarm
05: for n = 1 to number of particles
06: Find pbest
07: Find gbest
08: for d = 1 to number of dimension of particle
09: update the velocity and position of particles by Eq. (32) and Eq. (34), respectively
10: next d
11: next n
12: update the inertia weight value by Eq. (33)
13: next generation until stopping criterion
14: end
 J Intell Robot Syst

Start

Generate initial populations

Eq. (30), (31)

For each iteration k

Update the backstepping

control parameters [ki=1…6 ] Quadrotor UAV

Desired Backstepping Output

Controller
Run the quadrotor control
model

Calculate the fitness

function J , Eq. (38), (39)

Find pbest of each particle

and gbest of population

Update the velocity and

position of particles
Eq. (32), (34)

Update inertia weight

Eq. (33)

No k > kmax

Yes

Display optimal parameters

of backstepping controller

Stop

Fig. 5 The flowchart of the PSO-based backstepping control parameters optimization

by the behavior of organisms, such as fish school-
ing and bird flocking. Generally, PSO is characterized
as a simple concept, easy to implement, computa-
tionally efficient and quick convergence. It also has
a flexible and well-balanced mechanism to enhance
the global and local exploration abilities [24]. The
PSO algorithm has been used effectively on a wide
range of engineering and computer science problems
[25, 26]. Thus, due to these advantages, PSO is used
to compute the optimal parameters for the backstep-
ping controller of quadrotor systems. To objectively
evaluate the performance of PSO method, the opti-
mization technique of backstepping control param-
eters by using genetic algorithm (GA) such as the
works published in [27, 28] is employed. The main
advantage of the proposed method is that the struc-
ture of the control system is simple but very effective.
Furthermore, the nonlinear property of the dynamic
J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 6 Block diagram of

the robust optimal
backstepping control system

system is well preserved, since the controller design Assumption 2: Aerodynamic effects can be ignored
does not require any linearization. The effectiveness of at low speed.
the proposed robust control scheme is verified by Assumption 3: The rotor dynamics are relatively fast
simulation results. and thus can be neglected.
Assumption 4: The quadrotor’s center of mass and
body-fixed frame origin coincides.
2 Quadrotor Systems Modeling
2.2 Quadrotor Dynamic Model
2.1 Quadrotor Description
Let consider earth fixed frame E = {xe , ye , ze } and
The quadrotor UAV, shown in Fig. 1, has four rotors body fixed frame B = {xb , yb , zb }, as seen in Fig. 1.
to generate the propeller forces Fi=1,2,3,4 . The four Let q = (x, y, z, φ, θ, ψ) ∈ R 6 be the generalized
rotors can be thought of as two pairs, (1,3)@(front, coordinates for the quadrotor, where (x, y, z) denote
back) and (2,4)@(left, right). Fig. 2 shows the various the absolute position of the rotorcraft and (φ, θ, ψ)
movements of a quadrotor due to rotor speeds are the three Euler angles (roll, pitch and yaw) that
changes.
In order to develop the model of the quadrotor,
reasonable assumptions are established in order to
accommodate the controller design. The assumptions
Table 2 The rotation controller parameters and fitness value of
are as follows: each optimal particle
Assumption 1: Quadrotor is a rigid body and has
Iteration no. Optimal parameters Fitness value
symmetric structure.
1 k1 = 12.82, k2 = 12.46 2.511e − 007
Table 1 Parameters of the quadrotor k3 = 13.69, k4 = 15.50
k5 = 15.53, k6 = 13.51
Parameter Description Value Units
3 k1 = 14.74, k2 = 13.74 1.696e − 007
g Gravity 9.81 m/s 2 k3 = 14.00, k4 = 14.29
m Mass 0.5 kg k5 = 15.44, k6 = 13.49
l Distance 0.2 m 7 k1 = 14.64, k2 = 14.14 7.312e − 008
Ixx Roll inertia 4.85 × 10−3 kg · m2 k3 = 14.38, k4 = 14.21
Iyy Pitch inertia 4.85 × 10−3 kg · m2 k5 = 14.61, k6 = 14.11
Izz Yaw inertia 8.81 × 10−3 kg · m2 20 k1 = 14.64, k2 = 14.14 7.312e − 008
b Thrust factor 2.92 × 10−6 k3 = 14.38, k4 = 14.21
d Drag factor 1.12 × 10−7 k5 = 14.61, k6 = 14.11
 J Intell Robot Syst

Table 3 The position controller parameters and fitness value of The dynamic model of quadrotor is derived from
each optimal particle Newton-Euler approach. The translational dynamic
Iteration no. Optimal parameters Fitness value equations of quadrotor can be written as follows:

1 k7 = 14.85, k 8 = 13.32 0.1922 mξ̈ = −mgez + uT Rez (3)

k9 = 14.45, k 10 = 15.20
k11 = 15.39, k12 = 16.68 where m denotes the quadrotor mass, g the gravity
acceleration, ez = (0, 0, 1)T the unit vector expressed
5 k7 = 15.45, k 8 = 14.74 0.1741 in the frame E and uT the total thrust produced by the
k9 = 15.84, k 10 = 16.00 four rotors.
k11 = 15.33, k12 = 16.00
 
uT = 4
i=1 Fi =b 4 2
i=1 i (4)
9 k7 = 15.21, k 8 = 14.29 0.1543
k9 = 15.01, k 10 = 14.75 where Fi and i denote respectively, the thrust force
k11 = 15.42, k12 = 14.95 and speed of the rotor i and b is the thrust factor.
The orientation matrix R is given by:
20 k7 = 15.21, k 8 = 14.29 0.1543
k9 = 15.01, k 10 = 14.75 ⎛ ⎞
cθ cψ sφsθ cψ − cφsψ cφsθ cψ + sφsψ
k11 = 15.42, k12 = 14.95
R = ⎝ cθ sψ sφsθ sψ + cφcψ cφsθ sψ − sφcψ ⎠
−sθ sφcθ cφcθ
describe the orientation of the aerial vehicle. There- (5)
fore, the model could be separated in two coordi-
nate subsystems: translational and rotational. They are where s (·) and c (·) are abbreviations for sin(·) and
defined respectively by: cos(·), respectively.
The rotational dynamic equations of quadrotor can
ξ = (x, y, z) ∈ R 3 (1)
be written as follows:

η = (φ, θ, ψ) ∈ R 3 (2) I ω̇ = −ω × I ω − Ga + τ (6)

Fig. 7 The variations of rotation controller parameters by PSO versus number of iterations
J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 8 The variations of position controller parameters by PSO versus number of iterations

⎛ ⎞ ⎛   ⎞
where I is the inertia matrix, ω × I ω and Ga are the τφ lb 24 − 22 
gyroscopic effect due to rigid body rotation and pro- τ = ⎝ τθ ⎠ = ⎝  lb 23 − 21 
⎠ (8)
peller orientation change respectively, while τ is the τψ d 22 + 24 − 21 − 23
control torque obtained by varying the rotor speeds.
Ga and τ are defined as: where Jr is the rotor inertia, l represent the distance
 from the rotors to the centre of mass and d is the drag
Ga = i=1 Jr (ω × ez ) (−1)
4 i+1
i (7)
factor.

Fig. 9 The convergence of fitness function (rotation) with number of iterations for GA and PSO
 J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 10 The convergence of fitness function (position) with number of iterations for GA and PSO

Then, by recalling Eqs. 3 and 6, the dynamic model Consequently, quadrotor is an underactuated sys-
of the quadrotor in terms of position (x, y, z) and tem with six outputs (x, y, z, φ, θ, ψ) and four control
rotation (φ, θ, ψ) is written as: inputs ( uT , τ φ τθ , τψ ).
Finally, the quadrotor dynamic model can be writ-
⎛ ⎞ ⎛ ⎞ ⎛ ⎞
ẍ 0 cφ sθ cψ + sφ sψ ten in the following form:
1
⎝ ÿ ⎠ = ⎝ 0 ⎠ + ⎝ cφ sθ sψ − sφ cψ ⎠ uT (9)
m   1
z̈ −g cφ cθ
ẍ = Cφ Sθ Cψ + Sφ Sψ U1
m
  1
⎛
⎞⎛ J ⎞ ÿ = Cφ Sθ Cψ + Sφ Sψ U1
⎛ ⎞ Iyy −Izz m
θ̇ ψ̇ r
θ̇d
φ̈ ⎜
Ixx  ⎟ ⎜ Ixx ⎟   1
⎜ Izz −Ixx ⎟
⎝ θ̈ ⎠ = ⎜ φ̇ ψ̇ ⎟ − ⎜ − r φ̇d
J ⎟ z̈ = −g + Cφ Cθ U1
⎝
Iyy  ⎠ ⎝ Iyy ⎠ m
ψ̈ Ixx −Iyy 
θ̇ φ̇ Izz 0 Iyy − Izz Jr l
⎛ ⎞ φ̈ = θ̇ ψ̇ − θ̇d + U2
1 Ixx Ixx Ixx
Ixx τφ
⎜ ⎟ 
+⎜ 1 ⎟ Izz − Ixx Jr l
⎝ Iyy τθ ⎠ (10) θ̈ = φ̇ ψ̇ + φ̇d + U3
1 Iyy Iyy Iyy
Izz τψ 
Ixx − Iyy 1
θ̈ = θ̇ φ̇ + U4 (11)
where d = 2 + 4 − 1 − 3 . Izz Izz

Table 4 Comparison of results for 20 iterations of GA and PSO techniques

Technique Convergence rate (iteration number) Best fitness value

Rotation controller Position controller Rotation controller Position controller

GA 13 11 1.267e-7 0.2163
PSO 7 9 7.312e-8 0.1543
J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 11 Wind force acting 30

on the quadrotor in the
20
lateral direction

Wind force (N)

10

-10

-20

-30
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]

with a renaming of the control inputs as: X = [x1 x3 x5 x7 x9 x11 ]T = [z φ θ ψ x y]T (15)


U1 = b 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 δ = [δ1 δ3 δ5 δ7 δ9 δ11 ]T (16)


U2 = b 24 − 22 The bound of the external disturbance is assumed to
be given, that is |δ| ≤ β, where β is a given positive


U3 = b 23 − 21 constant. From Eqs. 11 and 15, the nonlinear dynamic
function f (X) and nonlinear control function g (X)


matrices can be written accordingly as:
U4 = d 22 + 24 − 21 − 23 (12)
⎛ ⎞
−g
⎜ θ̇ ψ̇a − θ̇a  ⎟
⎜ 1 2 d ⎟
3 Backstepping Control System for Quadrotor ⎜ ⎟
⎜ φ̇ ψ̇a3 + φ̇a4 d ⎟
f (X) = ⎜ ⎜ ⎟
⎟
The dynamic model (11) with the consideration of ⎜ θ̇ φ̇a5 ⎟
⎜ ⎟
external disturbance can be represented into nonlinear ⎝0 ⎠
dynamic equation described as follows: 0
⎛ ⎞
uz m1 0 0 0
Ẍ = f (X) + g (X) U + δ (13) ⎜ ⎟
⎜ 0 b1 0 0 ⎟
⎜ ⎟
⎜ 0 0 b2 0 ⎟
⎜ ⎟
where U, X and δ are respectively the input, state and g (X) = ⎜ ⎟ (17)
⎜ 0 0 0 b3 ⎟
external disturbance vector given as follows: ⎜ ⎟
⎜u 1 0 0 0 ⎟
⎝ xm ⎠
U = [U1 U2 U3 U4 ]T (14) uy m1 0 0 0

Fig. 12 Wind force acting 30

on the quadrotor in the
20
longitudinal direction
Wind force (N)

10

-10

-20

-30
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]
 J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 13 Altitude/attitude of Z position Roll angle

the hovering quadrotor 5.1 0.2
Desired
using OBC at case 1 5.05 Output

Roll [rad]
0.1

z [m]
5
0
4.95

4.9 -0.1
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]
Pitch angle Yaw angle
0.2 0.2

Pitch [rad]

Yaw [rad]
0.1 0.1

0 0

-0.1 -0.1
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]

 
with the abbreviations a1 = Iyy − Izz /Ixx , a2 = each one of the six controllable degree of freedom
Jr /Ixx , a3 = (Izz − Ixx ) /Iyy , a4 = Jr /Iyy , (DOF), for simplicity only one DOF is considered.
The design of ideal backstepping control (IBC) is
  described step-by-step as follows:
a5 = Ixx − Iyy /Izz , b1 = l/Ixx , b2 = l/Iyy ,
 
b3 = 1/Izz , ux = cφ sθ cψ + sφ sψ ,
    Step 1: Define the tracking error:
uy = cφ sθ sψ − sφ cψ , uz = cφ cθ
e1 = x1d − x1 (18)
The control objective is to design a suitable control
law so that the state trajectory X of the quadro- where x1d is a desired trajectory specified by a ref-
tor system can track a desired reference trajectory erence model. Then the derivative of tracking error
Xd = [x1d x3d x5d x7d x9d x11d ]T despite the pres- can be represented as:
ence of external disturbance. Since the description of
the control system design of the vehicle is similar for ė1 = ẋ1d − ẋ1 (19)

Fig. 14 x − y fixed 6
position hovering using Desired
OBC at Case 1 5.8 Output

5.6

5.4

5.2
y(m)

4.8

4.6

4.4

4.2

4
4 4.2 4.4 4.6 4.8 5 5.2 5.4 5.6 5.8 6
x(m)
J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 15 Control inputs of 5 5

the hovering quadrotor
using OBC at Case 1 4.8

U2 [N]
U1 [N]
0
4.6

4.4 -5
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]

2 1

1 0.5

U3 [N]

U4 [N]
0 0

-1 -0.5

-2 -1
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]

The first Lyapunov function is chosen as: By substituting the virtual control by its desired
value, Eq. 21 then becomes:
1 2
V1 (e1 ) = e (20) V̇1 (e1 ) = −k1 e12 ≤ 0 (23)
2 1
The derivative of V1 is: Step 2: The deviation of the virtual control from its
desired value can be defined as:
V̇1 (e1 ) = e1 ė1 = e1 (ẋ1d − ẋ1 ) (21)
e2 = ẋ1 − α1 = ẋ1 − ẋ 1d − k1 e1 (24)
ẋ1 can be viewed as a virtual control. The desired The derivative of e2 is expressed as:
value of virtual control known as a stabilizing
function can be defined as follows: ė2 = ẍ1 − α̇1
= f (x1 ) + g (x1 ) u1 + δ1 − ẍ1d − k1 ė1 (25)
α1 = ẋ1d + k1 e1 (22)
The second Lyapunov function is chosen as:
where k1 is a positive constant and should be 1 2 1 2
V2 (e1 , e2 ) = e + e (26)
determined by the PSO algorithm. 2 1 2 2

Fig. 16 Altitude/attitude of Z position Roll angle

the hovering quadrotor 5.1 0.2
using OBC at Case 2 Desired
5.05 Output
Roll [rad]

0.1
z [m]

5
0
4.95

4.9 -0.1
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]
Pitch angle Yaw angle
0.2 0.2
Pitch [rad]

Yaw [rad]

0.1 0.1

0 0

-0.1 -0.1
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]
 J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 17 x − y fixed 6
position hovering using Desired
OBC at Case 2 5.8 Output

5.6

5.4

5.2

y(m)
5

4.8

4.6

4.4

4.2

4
4 4.2 4.4 4.6 4.8 5 5.2 5.4 5.6 5.8 6
x(m)

Finding derivative of Eq. 26 yields:
V̇2 (e1 , e2 ) = e1 ė1 + e2 ė2
= e1 (ẋ1d − ẋ1 ) + e2 (ẍ1 − α̇1 )
= e1 (−e2 − k1 e1 ) + e2 (f (x1 )
+g (x1 ) u1 + δ1 − ẍ1d − k1 ė1 )
= −k1 e12 +e2 (−e1 +f (x1 )+g (x1 ) u1
+δ1 − ẍ1d − k1 ė1 )
where k2 is a positive constant and should be also
determined by the PSO algorithm. The term k2 e2 is
added to stabilize the tracking error e1 .
Substituting Eq. 28 into Eq. 27, the following
equation can be obtained:
V̇2 (e1 , e2 ) = −k1 e12 − k2 e22 = −E T KE ≤ 0 (29)
(27)

Step 3: Assuming the external disturbance is well

known, an IBC can be obtained as: where E = [e1 e2 ]T and K = diag (k1 , k2 ).
Since V̇2 (e1 , e2 ) ≤ 0, V̇2 (e1 , e2 ) is negative semi-
1 definite.
u1(I B) = (e1 + k 1 ė1 + ẍ1d −f (x1 )−δ1 −k2 e2 )
g (x1 ) Therefore, the IBC in Eq. 28 will asymptotically
(28) stabilize the system.

Fig. 18 Control inputs of 50 5

the hovering quadrotor
using OBC at Case 2
U1 [N]

U2 [N]

0 0

-50 -5
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]

2 2

1 1
U3 [N]

U4 [N]

0 0

-1 -1

-2 -2
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]
J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 19 Altitude/attitude of Z position Roll angle

the hovering quadrotor 5.1 0.2
Desired
using ROBC at Case 1 5.05 Output

Roll [rad]
0.1

z [m]
5
0
4.95

4.9 -0.1
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]
Pitch angle Yaw angle
0.2 0.2

Pitch [rad]

Yaw [rad]
0.1 0.1

0 0

-0.1 -0.1
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]

4 Backstepping Control Parameters Optimization
4.1 Overview of Particle Swarm Optimization
The PSO method is a member of wide category of
swarm intelligence methods for solving the optimiza-
tion problems. It is a population based search algo-
rithm where each individual is referred to as particle
and represents a candidate solution. Each particle in
PSO moves through the search space with an adapt-
able velocity that is dynamically modified according
to its own moving experience and also to the moving
experience of the other particles. In PSO each parti-
cles strive to improve themselves by imitating traits
from their successful peers. Further, each particle has
a memory and hence it is capable of remembering the
best position in the search space ever visited by it. The
position corresponding to the best fitness is known as
pbest and the overall best out of all the particles in the
population is called gbest.
The basic PSO algorithm consists of three steps,
namely, generating particles’ positions and velocities,
velocity update, and finally, position update. Here,
a particle refers to a point in the design space that
changes its position from one move (iteration) to
another based on velocity updates. First, the positions,
xik and velocities, vik of the initial swarm of parti-
cles are randomly generated using upper and lower

Fig. 20 x − y fixed 6
position hovering using Desired
ROBC at Case 1 5.8 Output

5.6

5.4

5.2
y(m)

4.8

4.6

4.4

4.2

4
4 4.2 4.4 4.6 4.8 5 5.2 5.4 5.6 5.8 6
x(m)
 J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 21 Control inputs of 5 5

the hovering quadrotor
using ROBC at Case 1 4.8

U1 [N]

U2 [N]
0
4.6

4.4 -5
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]

2 1

1 0.5

U3 [N]

U4 [N]
0 0

-1 -0.5

-2 -1
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]

bounds on the design variables values, xmin and xmax
as expressed in Eqs. 30 and 31 [29].
xi0 = xmin + rand(xmax − xmin )
vi0 = [xmin + rand(xmax − xmin )]/
t (31) solution represented by the position of a particle x0
Here, the positions and velocities are given in a vec-
tor format with the subscript and superscript denoting
the ith particle at iteration k, respectively. In Eqs. 30
and 31, rand is a uniformly distributed random vari-
able that can take any value between 0 and 1. This
initialization process allows the swarm particles to be
randomly distributed across the design space.
The second step is to update the velocities of all
particles at iteration k + 1 using the particles objective
or fitness values which are functions of the particles
current positions in the design space at iteration k.
The fitness function value of a particle determines
which particle has the best global value in the current
swarm, gbest and also determines the best position of
(30)
each particle over iteration, pbest i.e. in current and
all previous moves. For example, in a case to find the
and x1 so that the value of the fitness function f = 3
+ x02 + x12 is minimized. Let say that the position of
a current particle is x0 = 3 and x1 = 7, which corre-
sponding to a fitness of 3 + 32 + 72 = 61. The pbest
is updated by comparing the current and previous fit-
ness value, while the gbest is updated by comparing
the pbest and gbest fitness value. Suppose the previous
fitness value is 100 and the gbest fitness value is 32
which corresponding to particle’s position x0 = 2 and
x1 = 5. Therefore, the position of the current particle
(x0 = 3 and x1 = 7) is assigned as pbest since it gives

Fig. 22 Altitude/attitude of Z position Roll angle

the hovering quadrotor 5.1 0.2
using ROBC at Case 2 Desired
5.05 Output
Roll [rad]

0.1
z [m]

5
0
4.95

4.9 -0.1
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]
Pitch angle Yaw angle
0.2 0.2
Pitch [rad]

Yaw [rad]

0.1 0.1

0 0

-0.1 -0.1
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]
J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 23 x − y fixed 6
position hovering using Desired
ROBC at Case 2 5.8 Output

5.6

5.4

5.2

y(m)
5

4.8

4.6

4.4

4.2

4
4 4.2 4.4 4.6 4.8 5 5.2 5.4 5.6 5.8 6
x(m)

better (smaller) fitness value than previous particle.
Meanwhile, the gbest is maintained since its fitness
value is better than pbest.
The velocity update formula uses these two pieces
of information for each particle in the swarm along
with the effect of current motion, vik to provide a
search direction, vik+1 for the next iteration. The veloc-
ity update formula includes some random parameters,
represented by the uniformly distributed variables,
rand, to ensure good coverage of the design space and
avoid entrapment in local optima. The three values
that effect the new search direction, namely, cur-
rent motion, particle own memory, and swarm influ-
ence, are incorporated via a summation approach as
shown in Eq. 32 with three weight factors, namely,
inertia factor, w self confidence factor, c1 and swarm
confidence factor, c2 ,respectively.
vik+1 = w · vik + c1 · rand · pbest − xik
+c2 · rand · (gbest − xik ) (32)
Appropriate value ranges for c1 and c2 are 1-2, but
2 is the most appropriate in many cases. The following
inertia weight is used [30]:

w = wmax − (wmax − wmin ) k kmax (33)
where kmax and k is the maximum number of itera-
tions and the current number of iterations, respectively.

Fig. 24 Control inputs of 50 5

the hovering quadrotor
using ROBC at Case 2
U1 [N]

U2 [N]

0 0

-50 -5
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]

2 2

1 1
U3 [N]

U4 [N]

0 0

-1 -1

-2 -2
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s] Time [s]
 J Intell Robot Syst

Table 5 Quantitative comparison between OBC and ROBC for stabilization problem

Case Control scheme IAE

x y z φ θ ψ

1 OBC 0 0 1.207e-4 2.701e-2 2.610e-2 2.655e-2

ROBC 0 0 1.193e-4 2.016e-2 2.014e-2 2.008e-2
2 OBC 1.722 2.064 4.012e-1 1.147e-1 1.136e-1 4.208e-1
ROBC 0.1254 0.1511 3.473e-4 2.165e-2 2.163e-2 2.311e-2

Where, wmin and wmax are the minimum and max- 1 in Eq. 35 represents the rotation subsystem related
imum weights respectively. Appropriate values for with the dynamics of UAV roll motion φ, pitch motion
wmin and wmax are 0.4 and 0.9, respectively [31]. θ and yaw motion ψ. 2 in Eq. 36 represents the
Position update is the last step in each iteration. The position subsystem related with the dynamics of UAV
Position of each particle is updated using its velocity longitude motion x, latitude motion y and altitude
vector as shown in Eq. 34 and depicted in Fig. 3 motion z. Hence, the control scheme advocated for the
overall system is then logically divided in a rotation
xik+1 = xik + vik+1 (34)
controller and a position controller.
The three steps of velocity update, position update, In the previous section a controller (28) has been
and fitness calculations are repeated until a desired designed to stabilize one DOF of the overall sys-
convergence criterion is met. The pseudo-code of the tem. The coefficients k1 , k2 are control parameters
PSO algorithm is shown in Fig. 4. and need to be positive to satisfy stability criteria.
In conventional backstepping method, these parame-
4.2 Optimal Backstepping Control System ters are selected by trial and error. It is also possible
The dynamic model in Eq. 11 can be divided into two if the parameters are properly chosen, but it cannot
subsystems 1 and 2 , listed as follows: be said that the optimal parameters are selected. To
⎧
 overcome this drawback, this paper adopts the PSO
⎪ Iyy −Izz
⎪
⎪ φ̈ = θ̇ ψ̇ − Jr θ̇d + Ixx
l
U2 for determining the optimal value of the backstep-
⎨
Ixx  Ixx
Izz −Ixx Jr ping control parameters. The PSO is utilized off line
1 : θ̈ = φ̇ ψ̇ + φ̇d + Iyy U3
l
(35)
⎪
⎪
Iyy  Iyy to determine the backstepping controller parameters.
⎪ −I
⎩ ψ̈ = θ̇ φ̇ xx yy + 1 U4
I
Izz Izz The performance of the controller varies according to
⎧  1 adjusted parameters. Since the optimal backstepping
⎨ ẍ = cφ sθ cψ + sφ sψ  m U1 control (OBC) aims to improve the control perfor-
2 : ÿ = cφ sθ sψ − sφ cψ m1 U1 (36) mance yielded by a backstepping controller, it keeps
⎩  
z̈ = −g + cφ cθ m1 U1 the simple structure of the backstepping controller.

Fig. 25 Altitude tracking

response due to periodic
rectangular function using
OBC at Case 1
J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 26 Altitude tracking Z position

response due to periodic 2.5
rectangular function using
OBC at Case 2 2

1.5

z [m]
1

0.5 Desired
Output

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]

As aforementioned, the rotation and position subsys-
tem are comprised of three DOF. Then there are in
sum six control parameters that need to be selected
simultaneously for each subsystem.
In the present study, an integral absolute error
(IAE) is utilized to judge the performance of the con-
troller. IAE criterion is widely adopted to evaluate the
dynamic performance of the control system [32]. The
index IAE is expressed as follows:
t
I AE = |e(t)| dt
0 to set the priority of the multiple objective perfor-
Since the system is comprised of two subsys-
tems, hence a vector integral absolute error for
the rotation subsystem is taken as I AE R =
[I AE φ I AE θ I AE ψ ], where the subscripts are
denoted for roll, pitch and yaw, respectively. Mean-
while, a vector integral absolute error for the position
subsystem is taken as I AE P = [I AE x I AE y I AE z ],
where the subscripts are denoted for longitude,
latitude and altitude, respectively.
For the rotation controller, PSO algorithm is uti-
lized to minimize the fitness function JR , expressed
as:
JR = I AE R · W (38)
and for the position controller, PSO algorithm is uti-
lized to minimize the fitness function JP , expressed
as:
JP = I AE P · W (39)
(37) where W = [W1 W2 W 3 ]T is weighting vector used
mance index (MOPI) parameters and the value of “W ”
varies from 0 to 1. In this case, equal weights for
the three objectives to be met by the each controller
are considered as such the minimizations of the error
indexes are equally important. For fitness function cal-
culation, the time-domain simulation of the quadrotor
system model is carried out for the simulation period,
t. It is aimed to minimize this fitness function in order
to improve the system response in terms of the steady-
state errors. The PSO based approach to find out the

Fig. 27 Control inputs for 50

altitude tracking of
rectangular function using
OBC at Case 1 25
U1 [N]

-25

-50
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]
 J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 28 Control inputs for 50

altitude tracking of
rectangular function using
OBC at Case 2 25

U1 [N]
0

-25

-50
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]

optimal set of backstepping controller parameters is Now, it can be concluded that the system will be
shown in Fig. 5. asymptotically stable (V̇2 ≤ 0) if e2 is tend to zero as
the time goes to infinity, which means limt→∞ e2 = 0.
From Eq. 24, it can be found that |e2 | can be defined
5 Robust Optimal Backstepping Control System in the form of proportional and derivative of e1 as
follows:
The optimized IBC (28) effort cannot ensure the
favorable control performance if unpredictable pertur- |e2 | = |−(k1 e1 + ė1 )| = |k1 e1 + ė1 | (42)
bations from the unknown external disturbance occur.
Thus, auxiliary control effort should be designed to From Eq. 42, Eq. 41 can be rewritten in the form of:
eliminate the effect of the unpredictable perturbations.
V̇2 (e1 , e2 ) = −k1 e12 − k2 e22 + δ1 |k1 e1 + ė1 | (43)
The backstepping control effort for the nominal model
(δ = 0) is formulated as follows: Hence, the auxiliary control effort can be designed as
PD control effort such that the effect of the perturba-
1 tions can be vanished. The PD control signal is given
u1(B) = (e1 + k 1 ė1 + ẍ1d − f (x1 ) − k2 e2 )
g (x1 ) as follows:
(40)
u1(P D) = λ1 e1 + λ2 ė1

Substituting the backstepping control from Eq. 44, λ1
= λ2 e1 + ė1 (44)
Eq. 31 becomes: λ2

where λ1 and λ2 are proportional and derivative gain

V̇2 (e1 , e2 ) = −k1 e12 − k2 e22 + δ1 e2 (41) respectively. The value of gains should be chosen in

Fig. 29 Altitude tracking Z position

response due to periodic 2.5
trapezoidal function using
OBC at Case 1 2

1.5
z [m]

0.5 Desired
Output

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]
J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 30 Altitude tracking Z position

response due to periodic 2.5
trapezoidal function using
OBC at Case 2 2

1.5

z [m]
1

0.5 Desired
Output

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]

such a way that V̇2 ≤ 0 is satisfied. As aforemen- Finally, the control inputs U1 , U2 , U3 and U4 for
tioned, it is assumed that δ is bounded with β. By the quadrotor dynamic systems can be defined as
choosing −λ2 ≥ β and λ1 = k1 λ2 then V̇2 ≤ 0 can be follows:
satisfied.
Totally, the robust optimal backstepping control m
U1 = (e1 + k 1 ė1 + ẍ1d + g − k2 e2 )
(ROBC) law for one DOF of quadrotor nonlinear sys- cφ cθ

tems with the present of external disturbance, which λ1
+λ2 e1 + ė1
guarantees the stability and convergence, can be gen- λ2
erally represented as: 1  
U2 = e3 +k 3 ė3 + ẍ3d − θ̇ ψ̇a1 + θ̇a2 d −k4 e4
b1 
λ3
ui = ui(B) + ui(P D) +λ4 e3 + ė3
λ4
1 1  
u1 = (e1 + k 1 ė1 + ẍ1d − f (x1 ) − k2 e2 ) U3 = e5 +k 5 ė5 + ẍ5d − φ̇ ψ̇a3 − φ̇a4 d − k6 e6
g (x1 ) b2 
 λ5
λ1 +λ6 e5 + ė5
+λ2 e1 + ė1 ; (f or i = 1) (45) λ6
λ2 1  
U4 = e7 + k 7 ė7 + ẍ7d − θ̇ φ̇a5 − k8 e8
b3 
The control laws for the other states or DOF can be λ7
+λ8 e7 + ė7 (46)
obtained by performing the same steps. λ8

Fig. 31 Control inputs for 50

altitude tracking of
trapezoidal function using
OBC at Case 1 25
U1 [N]

-25

-50
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]
 J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 32 Control inputs for 50

altitude tracking of
trapezoidal function using
OBC at Case 2 25

U1 [N]
0

-25

-50
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]

The configuration of the proposed control system is
depicted in Fig. 6.
6 Simulation Results
In this section, the performance of the proposed
approach is evaluated. The corresponding algorithm
is implemented in MATLAB/SIMULINK simula-
tion environment. The quadrotor system is modeled
in SIMULINK and the PSO algorithm is imple-
mented in MATLAB. The model parameter values
of the quadrotor system are taken from [33] and
listed in Table 1. The controller parameter opti-
mization implemented in MATLAB is carried out
at first. Then, the identified parameter values are
transferred to the controller in the quadrotor sys-
tem developed in MATLAB/SIMULINK for further
evaluation.
In this study, the following values are assigned for
controller parameters optimization:
i Dimension of the search space = 6 ( i.e., ki=1...6
or ki=7...12 );
ii Population/swarm size = 15;
iii The number of maximum iteration = 20;
iv The self and swarm confident factor, c1 and
c2 = 2;
v The inertia weight factor w is set by Eq. 33,
where wmax = 0.9 and wmin = 0.4;
vi The searching ranges for the backstepping
parameters are limited to [0, 20];
vii The simulation time, t is equal to 10s;
viii Optimization process is repeated for 20 times;
The finest set of values among the simulation runs
is selected as the best optimized controller value. The
parameter and fitness values of each particle during
the simulation for the rotation and position controller

Fig. 33 Altitude tracking Z position

response due to periodic 2.5
rectangular function using
ROBC at Case 1 2

1.5
z [m]

0.5 Desired
Output

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]
J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 34 Altitude tracking Z position

response due to periodic 2.5
rectangular function using
ROBC at Case 2 2

1.5

z [m]
1

0.5 Desired
Output

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]

are summarized in Tables 2 and 3 respectively. For the
rotation controller, the best fitness value is 7.312e −
008 appeared in iteration number 7, and the opti-
mal parameters are k1 = 14.64, k2 = 14.14, k3 =
14.38, k4 = 14.21, k5 = 14.61 and k6 = 14.11. The
variations of backstepping control parameters with
respect to the number of iterations are shown in Fig. 7.
Meanwhile, for the position controller, the best fitness
value is 0.1543 appeared in iteration number 9, and the
optimal parameters are k7 = 15.21, k8 = 14.29, k9 =
15.01, k10 = 14.75, k11 = 15.42 and k12 = 14.95.
The variations of backstepping control parameters
with respect to the number of iterations are shown in
Fig. 8. As can be seen for both control parameters opti-
mization, through about 20 iterations, the PSO method
can prompt convergence and obtain good fitness value.
These results show that the PSO approach can search
optimal backstepping controller parameters quickly
and efficiently. In addition, for the purpose of com-
parison, the genetic algorithm (GA) technique used
in literature [27, 28] is also adopted to compute the
optimal parameters of backstepping controller. The
performance of both PSO and GA in terms of con-
vergence rate and best fitness value obtained are
compared. To ensure a fair evaluation for the both
methods, similar simulation conditions used in PSO
algorithm, i.e. population size, maximum iteration
number, search ranges, simulation time and optimiza-
tion process are maintained. The crossover rate is
chosen to be 0.9, while the mutation rate is set at 0.1.
The variation of the fitness functions for rotation
and position controller with number of iterations by
GA and PSO can be found in Figs. 9 and 10, respec-
tively. It is clear from these figures that, for the
optimization problem considered, PSO converge at a
faster rate (at iteration number 7 and 9) compared to
that for GA (at iteration number 13 and 11). Further-
more, it is also can be seen that, the fitness value
obtained by PSO is less compared to GA. This indi-
cates that, PSO can provide better optimal values of
backstepping control parameters rather than GA.
Table 4 summarizes the convergence rate and best
fitness value obtained by PSO and GA in the 20 iter-
ations. From the results presented in this table, it can

Fig. 35 Control inputs for 50

altitude tracking of
rectangular function using
ROBC at Case 1 25
U1 [N]

-25

-50
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]
 J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 36 Control inputs for 50

altitude tracking of
rectangular function using
ROBC at Case 2 25

U1 [N]
0

-25

-50
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]

be deduced that PSO performs better compared to
GA in terms of the convergence rate and best fitness
value obtained in the 20 iterations which indicating the
drawbacks of GA method as reported in [34].
To explore the effectiveness of the proposed
robust optimal backstepping controller, two simula-
tion experiments have been performed on the quadro-
tor. In the first experiment, the simulation results of
the proposed controller in a stabilizing problem are
given. In the second, the performance of the scheme is
investigated in a tracking problem. Two test conditions
are provided, which are the nominal case (Case 1) and
the external disturbance case (Case 2). The external
disturbance is generated as forces produced by wind
that is modeled using Dryden Wind-Gust model [35].
The wind disturbances in the lateral and longitudinal
direction are shown in Figs. 11 and 12, respectively.
6.1 Simulation Experiment 1: Stabilizing Problem
In this simulation experiment, the control objective
is to regulate a quadrotor at a certain desired alti-
tude/attitude, such that the quadrotor can hover at a
fixed position. The desired altitude/attitude is given
by xid = [zd , φd , θd , ψd ] = [5, 0, 0, 0]T . The ini-
tial states are given by z = 5, φ = 0.2, θ = 0.2
and ψ = 0.2. In the simulation, first, the optimized
backstepping control system is considered. The sim-
ulation results of the OBC system for stabilizing a
hovering quadrotor in fixed position [x, y = 5, 5m] at
Case 1 are depicted in Fig. 13 and the corresponding
x−y position is given in Fig. 14. The control inputs
are shown in Fig. 15. From the simulation results, the
OBC system is able to stabilize the quadrotor in hover
mode at Case 1. However, the degenerate performance
responses shown in Figs. 16 and 17 are resulted under
the occurrence of external disturbance (case 2). It can
be seen that in Fig. 17, the quadrotor is unable to
hover at a fixed x − y position. The control inputs
for OBC at Case 2 are shown in Fig. 18. Under the
same simulation cases, the ROBC system is simu-
lated. The simulation results for stabilizing a hovering
quadrotor at Case 1 are depicted in Fig. 19 and the
corresponding x − y position is shown in Fig. 20. The
control inputs are given in Fig. 21. From the simu-
lation results, the robust control performance of the

Fig. 37 Altitude tracking Z position

response due to periodic 2.5
trapezoidal function using
ROBC at Case 1 2

1.5
z [m]

0.5 Desired
Output

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]
J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 38 Control inputs for 50

altitude tracking of
trapezoidal function using
ROBC at Case 1 25

U1 [N]
0

-25

-50
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]

proposed ROBC system in the quadrotor stabilization
can be observed. It can be clearly seen that the quadro-
tor can be maintained at the desired altitude/attitude
and fixed x − y position, that is, the hovering flight
is stable even if the external disturbance is exerted
as shown in Figs. 22 and 23. The control inputs for
ROBC at Case 2 are shown in Fig. 24. For quantitative
comparison between two methods, integral absolute
error (IAE) is used as the criterion. Table 5 shows the
IAE values of the simulation results using the OBC
and ROBC approach. From the comparison, it can be
seen that the performance is improved in all the cases
when using the ROBC as compared to the OBC.
6.2 Simulation Experiment 2: Tracking Problem
In this simulation experiment, the control objective
is to maintain the system to track the desired alti-
tude trajectory with different reference signals. First,
the OBC system is simulated. The tracking responses
due to a periodic rectangular function at the nomi-
nal condition (Case 1) and external disturbance con-
dition (Case 2) are depicted in Figs. 25 and 26,
respectively. The control inputs for both cases are
shown in Figs. 27 and 28. Meanwhile, the tracking
responses due to a periodic trapezoidal function at
the nominal condition and external disturbance condi-
tion are depicted in Figs. 29, and 30, respectively. The
corresponding control inputs are respectively shown
in Figs. 31 and 32. From the simulation results,
the quadrotor is able to track the desired reference
trajectories at case 1 by OBC system as shown
in Figs. 25 and 29. However, the degenerate per-
formance response shown in Figs. 26 and 30 are
resulted under the occurrence of external disturbance.
Under the same simulation cases, the ROBC sys-
tem is simulated. The simulation results for track-
ing a periodic rectangular function at the nomi-
nal condition and external disturbance condition are
depicted in Figs. 33 and 34, respectively. The cor-

Fig. 39 Altitude tracking Z position

response due to periodic 2.5
trapezoidal function using
ROBC at Case 2 2

1.5
z [m]

0.5 Desired
Output

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]
 J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 40 Control inputs for 50

altitude tracking of
trapezoidal function using
ROBC at Case 2 25

U1 [N]
0

-25

-50
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]

responding control inputs are respectively shown in
Figs. 35 and 36. Meanwhile, the tracking responses
due to a periodic trapezoidal function at the nominal
condition and external disturbance condition are
depicted in Figs. 37 and 38, respectively. The cor-
responding control inputs are respectively shown in
Figs. 39 and 40. From the simulation results, the
robustness of the proposed control scheme in track-
ing the desired reference trajectories can be ascer-
tained as illustrated in Figs. 34 and 38. To fur-
ther highlight the advantage of the proposed con-
trol structure, the OBC and ROBC for x − y
position tracking is simulated. Considering that the
turning circle maneuver is an important practical
trajectory maneuver that the quadrotor needs to
perform, the control performance of circle trajec-
tory tracking is examined. The desired trajectory is
generated using the following command:

xd = 5 sin (t) ,
(47)
yd = 5 cos (t) .
The initial state of the quadrotor is set to be
[x0 , y0 ] = [5, 5]m. The simulation results of
x − y position tracking for both OBC and ROBC
approach under the occurrence of external distur-
bance are respectively shown in Figs. 41 and 42. The

Fig. 41 x − y position 12
circle trajectory tracking Output
response using OBC at End position Desired
Case 2
10

6
Wind
y(m)

Initial position
4

Wind
2

-2
-2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
x(m)
J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 42 x − y position 12
circle trajectory tracking Output
response using ROBC at End position Desired
Case 2
10

6
Wind

y(m)
Initial position
4

Wind
2

-2
-2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
x(m)

corresponding control inputs are respectively shown obviously that the ROBC can give small tracking
in Figs. 43 and 44. As it can be seen, the proposed error and good tracking performance compared to
control scheme can track the desired reference tra- OBC. In order to have a quantitative comparison of
jectory accurately despite external disturbance. It is tracking error, IAE of two methods has been reported.

Fig. 43 Control inputs for 50

z − x − y displacement
U1 [N]

using OBC at Case 2 0

-50
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]
0.05
U2 [N]

-0.05
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]
0.05
U3 [N]

-0.05
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]
 J Intell Robot Syst

Fig. 44 Control inputs for 50

z − x − y displacement

U1 [N]
using ROBC at Case 2 0

-50
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]
0.5

U2 [N]
0

-0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]
0.5

U3 [N]
0

-0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]

Table 6 Quantitative comparison between OBC and ROBC for tracking problem

Control scheme IAE

Rectangular Trapezoidal Circle Trajectory

Case 1 Case 2 Case 1 Case 2 Case 2

OBC 0.786 1.131 0.178 0.5417 10.788

ROBC 0.1907 0.1987 0.03311 0.04152 0.8775

According to the Table 6, it can be observed that the
proposed ROBC gives lower IAE value as compared to
OBC. It is evident from the simulation results that the
proposed method yields robust and superior control
performances.
disturbances. PSO algorithm has been utilized to
determine the controller parameters. Finally, the pro-
posed control scheme is applied to autonomous
quadrotor UAV. Simulation results show that high-
precision transient and tracking response can be
achieved by using the proposed control system.

7 Conclusions
References
In this paper, the application of a robust controller
for stabilization and trajectory tracking of a quadrotor
UAV perturbed by external disturbances is success-
fully demonstrated. First, the mathematical model
of the quadrotor is introduced. Then, the proposed
robust control system comprises a backstepping and a
PD controller is developed. The backstepping control
design is derived based on Lyapunov function, so that
the stability of the system can be guaranteed, while
PD control is used to attenuate the effects caused by
1. Salazar-Cruz, S., Escareno, J., Lara, D., Lozano,
R.: Embedded control system for a four-rotor UAV.
Int. J. Adap. Control Sig. Process. 21(2-3), 189–
204 (2007)
2. Bouabdallah, S., Murrieri, P., Siegwart, R.: Design and con-
trol of an Indoor micro quadrotor. In: Proceedings of IEEE
International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp.
4393–4398 (2004)
3. Castillo, P., Lozano, R., Dzul, A.: Stabilization of a mini
rotorcraft with four rotors. IEEE Control Syst. Mag. 25(6),
45–55 (2005)
J Intell Robot Syst
4. Salih, A.L., Moghavvemi, M., Mohamed, H.A.F., Gaeid,
K.S.: Modelling and PID controller design for a quadrotor
unmanned air vehicle. In: IEEE International Conference
on Automation Quality and Testing Robotics (AQTR), pp.
1-5, 28-30 May 2010 (2010)
5. Santos, M., López, V., Morata, F.: Intelligent fuzzy con-
troller of a quadrotor. In: IEEE International Conference on
Intelligent Systems and Knowledge Engineering (ISKE),
pp. 141–146 (2010)
6. Xu, R., Ozguner, U.: Sliding mode control of a quadrotor
helicopter. In: IEEE Conference on Decision and Control,
pp. 4957–4962 (2006)
7. Madani, T., Benallegue, A.: Backstepping Control for a
Quadrotor Helicopter. In: IEEE/RSJ International Confer-
ence on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 3255–3260,
9–15 Oct 2006 (2006)
8. Bouadi, H., Bouchoucha, M., Tadjine, M.: Modelling and
stabilizing control laws design based on backstepping for
an UAV type-quadrotor. In: Proceedings of the IFAC Sym-
posium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles, pp. 245–250,
Toulouse (2007)
9. Raffo, G.V., Ortega, M.G., Rubio, F.R.: Backstep-
ping/nonlinear H∞control for path tracking of a quadrotor
unmanned aerial vehicle. In: American Control Conference,
pp. 3356–3361, 11–13 June 2008 (2008)
10. Regula, G., Lantos, B.: Backstepping based control design
with state estimation and path tracking to an indoor quadro-
tor helicopter. Electr. Eng. Comput. Sci. 53(3-4), 151–161
(2011)
11. Kaloust, J., Ham, C., Siehling, J., Jongekryg, E., Han, Q.:
Nonlinear robust control design for levitation and propul-
sion of a maglev system. IEE Proc. Control Theory Appl.
151(4), 460–464 (2004)
12. Diao, C., Xian, B., Yin, Q., Zeng, W., Li, H., Yang, Y.: A
nonlinear adaptive control approach for quadrotor UAVs.
In: Proceedings of the IEEE 8th Asian Control Conference
(ASCC), pp. 223–228 (2011)
13. Mohammadi, M., Shahri, A.M., Boroujeni, Z.: Modeling
and Adaptive Tracking Control of a Quadrotor UAV. Int. J.
Intell. Mechatron. Robot 2(4), 58–81 (2012)
14. De Monte, P., Lohmann, B.: Position trajectory tracking of a
quadrotor helicopter based on L1 adaptive control. In: Euro-
pean Control Conference (ECC), pp. 3346–3353, 17–19 Jul
2013 (2013)
15. De Queiroz, M.S., Dawson, D.M.: Nonlinear control of
active magnetic bearings: a backstepping approach. IEEE
Trans. Control Syst. Technol. 4(5), 545–552 (1996)
16. Kim, K.S., Kim, Y.: Robust backstepping control for slew
maneuver using nonlinear tracking function. IEEE Trans.
Control Syst. Technol. 11(6), 822–829 (2003)
17. Karimi, A., Feliachi, A.: Decentralized adaptive backstep-
ping control of electric power systems. Electr. Power Syst.
Res. 78(3), 484–493 (2008)
18. Xie, Q., Han, Z., Kang, H.: Adaptive backstepping control
for hybrid excitation synchronous machine with uncertain
parameters. Expert Syst. Appl. 37(10), 7280–7284 (2010)
19. Ursu, I., Ursu, F., Popescu, F.: Backstepping design for con-
trolling electrohydraulic servos. J. Frankl. Inst. 343(1), 94–
110 (2006)
20. Hu, Q., Xu, L., Zhang, A.: Adaptive backstepping trajec-
tory tracking control of robot manipulator. J. Frankl. Inst.
349(3), 1087–1105 (2012)
21. Hamida, M.A., Glumineau, A., De Leon, J.: Robust
integral backstepping control for sensorless IPM syn-
chronous motor controller. J. Frankl. Inst. 349(5), 1734–
1757 (2012)
22. Krstic, M., Kanellakopoulos, I., Kokotovic, P.: Nonlinear
and adaptive control design, Vol. 222. Wiley New York
(1995)
23. Kennedy, J., Eberhart, R.: Particle swarm optimization. In:
Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Neural
Networks, pp. 1942–1948 (1995)
24. Abido, M.: Optimal design of power-system stabilizers
using particle swarm optimization. IEEE Trans. Energy
Convers. 17(3), 406–413 (2002)
25. Rini, D.P., Shamsuddin, S.M., Yuhaniz, S.S.: Particle
swarm optimization: Technique, system and challenges. Int.
J. Comput. Appl. 14(1), 19–27 (2011)
26. Marinaki, M., Marinakis, Y., Stavroulakis, G.E.: Fuzzy
control optimized by a multi-objective particle swarm
optimization algorithm for vibration suppression of
smart structures. Struct. Multidiscip. Optim. 43(1), 29–
42 (2011)
27. Witkowska, A., Smierzchalski, R.: Nonlinear backstepping
ship course controller. Int. J. Autom. Comput. 6(3), 277–
284 (2009)
28. Sahab, A.R., Modabbernia, M.R.: Back stepping method
for a single-link flexible-joint manipulator using genetic
algorithm. Int. J. Innov. Comput. Inf. Control 7(7 B), 4161–
4170 (2011)
29. Hassan, R., Cohanim, B., De Weck, O., Venter, G.: A com-
parison of particle swarm optimization and the genetic algo-
rithm. In: Proceedings of the 1st AIAA multidisciplinary
design optimization specialist conference (2005)
30. Lalitha, M.P., Reddy, V.V., Usha, V.: Optimal DG place-
ment for minimum real power loss in radial distribution
systems using PSO. J. Theor. Appl. Inf. Technol. 13(2),
107–116 (2010)
31. Eberhart, R.C., Shi, Y.: Comparing inertia weights and
constriction factors in particle swarm optimization. In:
Proceedings of the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Com-
putation, pp. 84–88 (2000)
32. Allaoua, B., Gasbaoui, B., Mebarki, B.: Setting up PID
DC motor speed control alteration parameters using particle
swarm optimization strategy. Leonardo Electron. J. Pract.
Technol. 14, 19–32 (2009)
33. Voos, H.: Nonlinear control of a quadrotor Micro-UAV
using Feedback-Linearization. In: IEEE International Con-
ference on Mechatronics, pp. 1–6 (2009)
34. Eberhart, R.C., Shi, Y.: Comparison between Genetic Algo-
rithms and Particle Swarm Optimization. In: Proceedings of
the 7th International Conference on Evolutionary Program-
ming, pp. 611–616 (1998)
35. Waslander, S.L., Wang, C.: Wind disturbance esti-
mation and rejection for quadrotor position control.
In: AIAA Infotech@Aerospace conference and AIAA
unmanned. . . Unlimited Conference (2009)