Nonlinear Attitude and Altitude Trajectory Tracking Control of a Bicopter UAV in Geometric Framework

In this paper, we deal with a Bicopter drone that has two thrusters and two tilting servos. Both the position and attitude dynamics of Bicopter are globally expressed on the Special Euclidean group SE3. A simple control allocation method is proposed to map between the control wrench and actuator inputs for the Bicopter. A geometric nonlinear attitude and altitude tracking controller is developed for the Bicopter and the asymptotic stability analysis is performed using the Lyapunov method for the closed-loop nonlinear system. The performance of the proposed altitude and attitude stabilization controller is validated through experimental hardware developed in-house. The attitude controller performance is validated through simulations and shown to be comparable against an linear matrix inequality-based control law.