2021 European Control Conference (ECC)
June 29 - July 2, 2021. Rotterdam, Netherlands
Design of Sliding Mode Controllers for Quadrotor Vehicles via
Flatness-based Feedback and Feedforward Linearization Strategies
Luca Bascetta and Gian Paolo Incremona
Abstract— Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have to operate
in complex environments, characterized by disturbances of
different nature that affect the system performance. Moreover,
system dynamics can be altered by unavoidable modeling un-
certainties, that can further decrease the control performance.
This motivates the introduction of robust control strategies
and, among them, Sliding Mode Control (SMC) represents
a viable solution, provided that the UAV model is led back
to a normal form, suitable for control design purposes. This
paper investigates two flatness-based linearization approaches,
a feedback and a feedforward one, that transform the nonlinear
and coupled quadrotor model into a canonical form eligible
to design a trajectory tracking controller based on a battery
of Higher-Order Sliding Mode (HOSM) regulators. Simulation
results, based on a realistic model of a quadrotor, are presented
to assess the performance of the proposed control system.
I. I NTRODUCTION
In the last decade, UAV flight control has represented a
deeply and extensively researched topic. These vehicles have
indeed changed many different application domains, ranging
from entertainment to border surveillance monitoring and
inspection of industrial plants [1], thanks to their capabil-
ity to collect many information through on-board sensors,
and to manipulate the working environment via their tools.
Furthermore, as on-board pilots are not needed, and UAVs
mobility and agility are superior with respect to their piloted
counterparts, they are suitable candidates for autonomous
applications in hazardous environments or in any situation
in which human intervention is significantly dangerous.
Quadrotor vehicles are a class of UAVs characterized by a
symmetric body frame and four propellers located at the end
of the frame arms. They can be modeled as a six degrees of
freedom mechanical system, composed of three translational
and three rotational motions, and characterized by four
inputs, typically represented by propeller rotational speeds.
As a consequence, a UAV is an underactuated system,
which makes the flight control problem more challenging.
A common practice to overcome this issue is by taking into
account only three translational and one rotational degrees
of freedom, so that the number of control signals equals
that of controlled variables, but all the motions are coupled
and characterized by highly nonlinear dynamics. In addition,
this dynamics is unavoidably affected by parametric uncer-
tainties, due to modeling simplifications, and by external
L. Bascetta and G. P. Incremona are with the Dipartimento di Elet-
tronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza
Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milan, Italy (e-mail: {luca.bascetta,
gianpaolo.incremona}@polimi.it). The work of G. P. In-
cremona has been partially supported by the Italian Ministry for Research
in the framework of the 2017 Program for Research Projects of National
Interest (PRIN), Grant no. 2017YKXYXJ.
978-94-6384-236-5 ©2021 EUCA
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disturbances, thus motivating the adoption of robust control
strategies.
In this context, SMC plays a crucial role, thanks to the
robustness features enabled on controlled systems character-
ized by hard nonlinearities and uncertainties [2]. In particular,
SMC algorithms are suitable to cope with uncertainties and
disturbances of matched type, i.e., acting on the same channel
of the control input. Furthermore, using a discontinuous
control signal allows to achieve finite time convergence of
the controlled variable, i.e., the so-called sliding variable,
thus speeding up the tracking performance of the controlled
system, in spite of the unknown terms. However, in order
to formulate the control problem in an appropriate way,
it is convenient to make reference to a canonical form
frequently used in SMC theory. This diffeomorphism is not
only instrumental to ease the solution of the control problem,
as it allows to regulate a perturbed chain of integrators
instead of a highly nonlinear model, but supports the design
of efficient kinodynamic planning algorithms, as well.
This paper, inspired by [3], proposes and compares two
flatness-based linearization approaches, one relying on a
feedback and another one on a feedforward control law,
that transform a nonlinear and coupled dynamical system
into a canonical form eligible to design a trajectory tracking
controller based on a battery of HOSM regulators.
Many works have been published in the literature on
the design of flight controllers for UAVs. In [4], for in-
stance, the control design is performed using linear control
tools, linearizing the quadrotor model around the hovering
equilibrium point. Nonlinear control techniques, including
fuzzy logic [5], flatness-based passivity control [6], and
adaptive controllers, even of sliding mode type [7], are in-
stead proposed in [8]. More precisely, as for HOSM control,
recent contributions can be found in [9] and [10], respec-
tively. Moreover, flatness-based feedforward and feedback
linearization schemes, in combination with model predictive
controllers, have also been proposed, e.g., in [3], [11].
Although SMCs are capable of being insensitive to a
widely class of uncertainties, often independently of system
nonlinearities (see, e.g., [2, Chapter 1] for further details), a
global linearization turns out to be very effective. This moti-
vates the present paper, that formulates a general procedure
for SMC design based on differential flatness theory [12].
The application of this tool allows to define a bidirectional
coordinate transformation that gives rise to an equivalent
linear system in normal canonical form, perfectly fitting the
requirements to design a trajectory tracking controller based
on SMC theory.
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 II. P ROBLEM S ETTING velocity, is defined as follows
 
In this paper, we study the trajectory tracking control 0 −r q
problem of a conventional quadrotor. The used model of the S (ω) ,  r 0 −p .
UAV and the control problem are hereafter introduced. −q p 0
A. Quadrotor dynamic model The inputs of the quadrotor are defined as u1 and u2 , such
that
To describe the motion of a quadrotor, a fixed world  
4 L(F2 − F4 )
reference frame OW − XW YW ZW , and a mobile body X
u1 , Fi u2 ,  L(F3 − F1 )  ,
reference frame OB − XB YB ZB are introduced, as shown
i=1 M 1 + M 3 − M 2 − M4
in Figure 1. Specifically, the mobile frame origins in the
center of mass of the quadrotor, it has the Z axis parallel to where L is the length of each body arm, Fi and Mi , i =
propeller axes, and the X axis pointing in the direction of 1, . . . , 4, are thrust forces and reaction moments generated
rotor 1. The position of the quadrotor is represented by the by propellers.
Finally, we consider additive disturbances, du1 and du2 ,
ZB acting on quadrotor inputs, introduced to represent external
ZW disturbances and parametric uncertainty, e.g., due to the sim-
XB
YB plifying assumptions under which the model is developed.
q B. Trajectory tracking control problem
We are now in a position to state the control problem
XW YW
ψ that is addressed in this work: design a robust trajectory
tracking controller that allows the quadrotor to track the
Fig. 1. Quadrotor frame description. position reference triple (x? , y ? , z ? ) and the desired angle
ψ ? , in spite of disturbances and modeling uncertainties.
>
position q , [x, y, z] of the origin of the body frame with III. L INEARIZATION A PPROACH
respect to the world frame. Its orientation is given by a set In this paper, we propose a robust SMC strategy, relying on
>
of ZXY Euler angles, as Φ , [φ, θ, ψ] . two linearization approaches, that aims at solving the prob-
Under the following assumptions: lem formulated in Section II-B. More precisely, a mapping
1) air drag is neglected, due to low velocities; to express model (1) in flatness form is introduced, and a
2) body elasticity is neglected, due to low thrust forces feedback and a feedforward linearization law are derived.
and low accelerations;
A. A flat model of the quadrotor
3) ground effects and aeroelasticity are neglected, again
assuming low velocities and considering the motion at Let the state vector be defined as
 >
a sufficient distance from ground; χ = x y z φ θ ψ ẋ ẏ ż p q r ,
4) actuator dynamics is neglected, as blade speed con-
so that model (1) can be easily rewritten as a nonlinear
trollers are at least an order of magnitude faster than
dynamical system in state-space form. Introducing the flat
quadrotor dynamics;
output vector
the motion equations of the UAV can be written as follows  >
σ= x y z ψ , (2)
mq̈ = −mgzW + W RB (u1 + du1 ) zB for a bounded region of the rotational variables, the same
, (1)
I ω̇ = u2 + du2 − S (ω) I ω model can be expressed in flatness form using the following
where m and I are quadrotor mass and inertia tensor mapping for the state (see [13] for further details),
expressed in body frame, respectively, while g is the grav- x = σ1 y = σ2 z = σ3
(3)
itational constant. The unit vectors related to the Z axes ẋ = σ̇1 ẏ = σ̇2 ż = σ̇3
of body and world reference frames, expressed with respect
and
to their own frames, are zB and zW , respectively, while
the rotational matrix between the two frames is W RB . The φ = atan2 (sσ4 σ̈1 − cσ4 σ̈2 , σ̈3 + g)
> θ = atan2 (sσ4 σ̈2 + cσ4 σ̈1 ,
rotational velocity, namely ω , [p, q, r] , expressed in body

frame, is related to the derivatives of the Euler angles Φ by
q
2 2
the following equation (σ̈3 + g) + (sσ4 σ̈1 − cσ4 σ̈2 )

ψ = σ4
  
cθ 0 −cφ sθ φ̇ (4)
ω = 0 1 sφ   θ̇  , m W 1,2 (3) W 2,2 (3) W 3,2 (3) 
p=− RB σ1 + RB σ2 + RB σ3
sθ 0 cφ cθ ψ̇ u
1
m W 1,1 (3) W 2,1 (3) W 3,1 (3) 
q= RB σ 1 + RB σ 2 + RB σ 3
with the notation c(·) , cos(·) and s(·) , sin(·). Moreover, u1
the skew-symmetric matrix S (ω), representing the rotational r = tθ (p + cφ sθ σ̇4 ) + cφ cθ σ̇4 ,

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 ξ̈=fξ (z,v) so that a dependence on virtual input explicitly appears [12],
v u1 ,u2 χ
u1 =ξ [15], obtaining
u2 =fu2 (z,v) "
2 #
m > > α> β
z ü1 = √ α γ+β β− ,
χ→z α> α α> α
> h i>
with α = σ̈1 σ̈2 σ̈3 + g , β = σ1(3) σ2(3) σ3(3) ,

Fig. 2. Feedback linearizing controller.
h i>
v
γ = σ1(4) σ2(4) σ3(4) . Now, let zj , j = 1, . . . , 14,
ξ̈=fξ (z,v)

u1 =ξ
u1 ,u2 χ be the variables associated to the elements of vector z,
z and vi , i = 1, . . . , 4, those associated to vector v. Using
u2 =fu2 (z,v)
the previous expression, provided that α 6= 0 to avoid
singularities, suitably introducing an intermediate variable ξ,
Fig. 3. Feedforward linearizing controller.
and substituting flat outputs with the corresponding elements
of state vector z, together with relation (6), the following
linearizing law can be defined
where W Ri,jB represents element (i, j) of
W
RB matrix, and
(k)  2 
σi is the k-th derivative of variable σi with respect to time.

T
m  T α̃ β̃ 
As for the inputs, model (1) and relations (3)-(4) allow to ξ¨ = √ α̃ γ̃ + β̃ T β̃ −
α̃T α̃
 
directly derive the following mapping α̃T α̃
q
u1 = m σ̈12 + σ̈22 + (σ̈3 + g)2 (5) u1 = ξ (7)
p̃˙
     
0 −r̃ q̃ p̃
and   
ṗ 0 −r q
  
p u2 = I q̃˙ +  r̃
 0 −p̃ I q̃  ,
u2 = I q̇  +  r 0 −p I q  , (6) r̃˙ −q̃ p̃ 0 r̃
ṙ −q p 0 r where tilde operator applied to a variable means that it is
where ṗ, q̇, ṙ can be related to flat outputs differentiating calculated substituting the highest order derivatives of flat
with respect to time the mapping that gives p, q, and r, outputs with the corresponding component of v, and the re-
respectively. maining flat
 outputs with the>corresponding
 > of z,
component
According to [12], [14], every differentially flat nonlinear i.e., α̃ = z3 z7 z11 + g , β̃ = z4 z8 z12 , γ̃ =
 >
system can be transformed into an equivalent linear one in v1 v2 v3 . Finally, relation (7) represents a feedback or
Brunovsky canonical form, defining a suitable state vector z, feedforward linearizing law, depending on how state vector
based on flat outputs, a virtual input vector v corresponding z is interpreted. If z is substituted with a measurement of the
to the highest order derivatives of flat outputs, and exploiting quadrotor state, a loop is closed and equation (7) represents
the flat mapping. a feedback linearizing law (Figure 2). If z is instead sub-
A closer inspection to mappings (3), (4), (5), and (6) re- stituted with the nominal behavior of the state, equation (7)
veals that, in the case of a quadrotor, the highest order represents a feedforward linearizing law (Figure 3). In both
(3)
derivatives are: σi , i = 1, 2, 3, and σ̇4 for the state cases, the application of (7) to model (1) transforms it into
(4) a dynamical system in Brunovsky canonical form, i.e.,
mapping, and σi , i = 1, 2, 3, and σ̈4 for the input mapping.
Consequently, virtual input vector v has to be selected as żj (t) = zj+1 , j = 1, . . . ρi − 1
h i >
v , σ1(4) σ2(4) σ3(4) σ̈4 , and state vector z as z , (8)
h i żρi (t) = vi + δi ,
>
z1 z2 z3 z4 , where zi = σi σ̇i σ̈i σi(3) , i =

  where δi ∈ D ⊂ R represents the lumped uncertainty due to
1, 2, 3, and z4 = σ4 σ̇4 . modeling mismatch or to disturbances du1 and du2 , while
In the following, two control laws to transform model (1) the relative degree is ρi = 4, for i = 1, 2, 3, and ρ4 = 2.
in Brunovsky canonical form are introduced, one based on a
feedback and another one on a feedforward control action. IV. D ESIGN OF THE HOSM C ONTROLLERS
We are now in a position to introduce the adopted sliding
B. Feedback and Feedforward linearization mode controllers. First, the sliding surfaces are defined, then
According to [12], [14]–[16], a linearizing law can be HOSM control laws [17] of suitable order are proposed.
derived from the input mapping substituting the highest order
derivatives of flat outputs with the corresponding elements A. Sliding surfaces
of virtual input vector v, and the remaining flat outputs with The linearization approaches discussed in the previous
the corresponding elements of state vector z. section allow to reduce model (1) to a dynamical system
Considering that relation (5) does not depend on virtual in normal form. More specifically, the linearized quadrotor
inputs, it has to be differentiated twice with respect to time dynamics is captured by the chain of three 4-order integrators

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and a double integrator, given in (8). This system is hence
eligible to be controlled via HOSM control laws.
The so-called sliding variables, namely si (z) ∈ R, i =
1, . . . , 4 are chosen as the error between the flat measured
state z and the reference state z? , i.e., si (z) = z(4i−3) −
? (k)
z(4i−3) , i = 1, . . . , 4. Letting ζik+1 , si , k ∈ N≥0 be new
auxiliary states, the corresponding auxiliary systems are
ζ̇ij (t) = ζij+1 , j = 1, . . . ρi − 1
?(4)
ζ̇iρi (t) = vi − z(4i−3) + δi .
Furthermore, we assume that the uncertainty term δi is
bounded with known bounds, that is |δi | ≤ Dsup , with
Dsup , supδi ∈D {|δi |}.
(ρ −1)
Let si = [si , ṡi , . . . , si i ]> = [ζi1 , ζi2 , . . . , ζiρi ]> ∈
Rρi be the vector of the sliding variable and its derivatives up
to order ρi −1, for any i = 1, . . . , 4, then the control objective
becomes to design a HOSM control law that enables a sliding
mode in finite time on the manifolds expressed by Si ,
{(zi , . . . , zρi ) ∈ Rρi : si ≡ 0}, i = 1, . . . , 4.
B. HOSM control laws
Given the auxiliary systems (9), we can design HOSM
control laws of suitable order. More specifically, assuming to
be able to measure or estimate (for instance via a Levant’s
differentiator of suitable order [18]) the sliding variable and
its derivatives, the i-th control law is given by
vi = vi? + vsmi (si ) i = 1, . . . , 4
where vi? are the highest order time derivatives of the desired
flat outputs, while vsmi (si ) are the discontinuous components
given by the HOSM control laws. The latter are selected
making reference to [17], so that, letting γi > 0 be the
control gains selected so as to dominate the worst realization
of the uncertain terms δi , three four-order sliding mode (4-
SMC) and a second-order sliding mode (SOSM) controller
are designed as follows,


1  elasticity, ground effects, and actuator dynamics, a valida-
(3)
vsmi (si ) = −γi sgn si + 3 s̈6i + ṡ4i + |si |3 12 sgn s̈i +

1

3

ṡ4i + |si |3 6 sgn ṡi + 21 |si | 4 sgn(si ) , i = 1, 2, 3
 
1 characterized by different phases but a common frequency
vsm4 (s4 ) = −γ4 sgn s4 + |s4 | 2 sgn(s4 ) .
We refer the reader to [17] for further details on stability and
robustness arguments on the used HOSM control approaches.
Note that, one can prove the finite time convergence of the
sliding variables to zero in spite of uncertainties, that, in
our case, means the quadrotor follows the desired trajectory
defined in terms of the flat variables σ in (2).
V. C ASE S TUDY
In this section, the two proposed linearization techniques,
together with the proposed battery of HOSM controllers, are
validated in simulation.
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A. Settings
For the sake of validation a nonlinear model of the quadro-
tor, exploiting motion equations (1), has been implemented
in M ATLAB -S IMULINK© . The main physical parameters are
reported in Table I. Note that, according to modeling assump-
tion 4, the dynamics of the actuators has been neglected in
the simulator as well, as it is at least an order of magnitude
faster than quadrotor dynamics.
(9) TABLE I
QUADROTOR PARAMETERS
m kg 0.5
IXX kg m2 1.5 × 10−3
IY Y kg m2 1.5 × 10−3
2.8 × 10−3
IZZ kg m2
L m 8.84 × 10−2
A trajectory tracking task, composed of a step motion,
taking off the quadrotor and moving it to the starting position,
and a helical motion, combined with a continuous gyration
around zW , has been selected to validate the proposed
control system. The overall trajectory has been expressed
in analytical form, in order to simplify the computation
of time derivatives needed to apply the HOSM controllers.
In particular, the initial motion taking the quadrotor to a
fixed position (x̄, ȳ, z̄) equal to (2.5, 0, 4) with yaw ψ̄ equal
to π/2 is represented by x? = x̄ · h (t − 0.2), y ? = ȳ,
z ? = z̄ · h (t − 0.2), ψ ? = ψ̄, where h (t) is the step
(10) function. The helical motion with gyration, starting after
5 s, is instead represented by x? = R cos (ω (t − 5)), y ? =
R sin (ω (t − 5)), z ? = z̄ + νz (t − 5), ψ ? = ψ̄ + ω (t − 5),
where R is the radius of the helix, equal to 5 m, ω is the helix
angular velocity, equal to 0.4π rad s−1 , and νz is the helix
ascensional velocity, equal to 0.2 m s−1 . The yaw velocity
has been selected equal to ω, so that the quadrotor faces the
helix rotation axis throughout the motion.
Considering that model (1), on which the control system
is designed, has been derived neglecting air drag, body
tion of the proposed controller in the presence of these
disturbances is required. According to [19], [20], external
disturbances and parametric uncertainty can be modeled as
additional low frequency sinusoidal forces and moments,
(11)
and amplitude, expressed with respect to the world reference
frame. These forces and moments can be then transformed
into additive disturbances on the quadrotor inputs u1 and u2
using matrix W RB . In particular, we have considered the
following disturbances
 
sin (20πt)
du1 (t) = 0 0 1 W RTB Du1 sin (20πt + 3)
 
sin (20πt − 1)
 
sin (20πt + 0.2)
W T
du2 (t) = RB Du2 sin (20πt − 0.25) ,
sin (20πt)
where the amplitudes are equal to Du1 = 1.4 N, Du2 =
1.41 N m, and have been selected in order to have a distur-
bance around 20 % of the observed maximum input values.
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 (a) trajectory (b) tracking error (c) control signal

Fig. 4. Helical trajectory (reference as gray dashed line, actual as black line) using feedback linearization.

(a) trajectory (b) tracking error (c) control signal

Fig. 5. Helical trajectory (reference as gray dashed line, actual as black line) using feedforward linearization.

Finally, a modeling error of 10 % on mass and inertia [21]

has been considered, as well.
B. Simulation results
Though an extensive simulation campaign has been per-
formed (see [13] for further details) in order to assess
performance and robustness of the proposed approach, and to
compare feedback and feedforard linearization, for the sake
of space limitation only two scenarios are here presented:
the HOSM controller applied to a feedback/feedforward lin-
earized quadrotor in nominal conditions, and in the presence
of parametric uncertainty and input disturbances. The control
gains are equal to γi = 800, i = 1, 2, 3, and γ4 = 400. Fig. 6. Comparison of trajectory tracking errors using feedforward (black
line) and feedback (gray dashed line) linearization, with actuators saturation.
Figures 4 and 5 show the quadrotor trajectory, the tracking
errors (ex , ey , ez ), and the control signals (u1 , u21 , u22 , u23 )
for the feedback and feedforward linearized quadrotor, re-
spectively. As expected the reference signals are tracked in controllers as those in [2, Chapter 3]. Figure 6, reports a
finite time in spite of uncertainties and disturbances, thus comparison between the tracking errors obtained with the
assessing the powerful robustness feature of the sliding mode two linearization approaches in this scenario. Furthermore,
control laws. in order to give a synthetic and quantitative comparison of
Considering that the proposed approach has to be tested the performance and robustness versus the control effort
on a PARROT AR.D RONE 2.0, taking into account the real between feedback (FB) and feedforward (FF) linearization
quadrotor limitations, i.e., actuators saturation, it is fun- approaches, the Integral Square tracking Error (ISE) and the
damental to guarantee the practical applicability of the Integral of the Squared control Input (ISI) in nominal (N) and
control system. For this reason, we have further assessed perturbed (P) conditions are also reported in Tables II and III,
the proposal by limiting the control inputs. Note that a respectively. Both indexes have been computed considering
valid alternative is given by the use of saturated HOSM only the steady state evolution, i.e., skipping the first ten

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z 2.06 × 10−14 2.66 6745.
ψ 8.12 × 10−6 8.38 × 10−4
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x 1.82 × 10−13 0.82 “A prototype of an autonomous controller for a quadrotor UAV,” in
FF y 2.78 × 10−6 8.59 × 10−5 European Control Conference (ECC), Kos, Greece, 2007, pp. 4001–
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N P
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