a novel optimized sliding surface design for robust tracking control of rudderless flying-wing uavs

Designing an efficient controller for rudderless flying-wing type unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs) is a challenging issue due to their design characteristics and limited control surfaces. the lack of vertical and horizontal stabilizers in these types of uavs causes serious flight stability problems especially in lateral motion. in addition, a control structure for the efficient control of both longitudinal and lateral motions is not presented so far. this paper proposes a novel optimized sliding surface design for output tracking of rudderless flying-wing uavs in longitudinal and lateral motions based on sliding mode integral tracking (smit) control approach. the sliding hyper-plane optimized by the lqr method extends its optimal characteristics to the whole closed-loop system. stabilizing the system dynamics augmented by the integral of the tracking error ensures tracking performance with high robustness properties inherent in sliding mode control characteristics. the simulation results confirm the excellent tracking behavior and robustness performance of the proposed control structure.