Robust control of single axis gimbal platform for micro air vehicles based on uncertainty and disturbance estimation

Stabilization of gimbal platform housing the payload in Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) applications is crucial in operational situations. The gimbal positioning is achieved through a DC servo motor, which needs to be controlled for the desired performance under uncertainty and disturbance. In this work a novel robust control strategy employing the technique of Uncertainty and Disturbance Estimator (UDE) has been developed. The strategy has been validated through numerical solutions and experimentation. A performance comparison of the proposed strategy with well-known Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller has also been accomplished.