Controlling the PVTOL Aircraft System with an Inverted Pendular Load by means of Nested Saturation Functions and GPI Controller

This paper presents a control scheme that allows height position regulation and stabilization for an unmanned planar vertical takeoff and landing aircraft system with an inverted pendular load. The proposed controller consists of nested saturations and a generalized proportional integral (GPI). The GPI controls the aircraft height and the roll attitude; the latter is used as the fictitious input control. Next, the system is reduced through linear transformations, expressing it as an integrator chain with a nonlinear perturbation. Finally, the nested saturation function-based controller stabilizes the aircraft’s horizontal position and the pendulum’s angle. Obtaining the control approach was a challenging task due to the underactuated nature of the aircraft, particularly ensuring the pendulum’s upright position. The stability analysis was based on the second method of Lyapunov using a simple candidate function. The numerical simulation confirmed the control strategy’s effectiveness and performance. Additionally, the numerical simulation included a comparison against a PD controller, where its corresponding performance indexes were estimated, revealing that our controller had a better response in the presence of unknown disturbances.