Quadcopter Robust Adaptive Second Order Sliding Mode Control Based on PID Sliding Surface

We present a robust adaptive second-order sliding mode controller that rejects external disturbances and uncertainties to improve the tracking performance of attitude and altitude in a quadcopter based on a Proportional–Integral–Derivative sliding surface. The algorithm provides a rapid adaptation and strict robustness of the flight control for the vehicle under the effect of perturbations. The proposed controller design is based on the theory of second order sliding mode technique that eliminates the chattering phenomenon present in first-order sliding mode controllers. In addition, we derive an adaptive law from the Lyapunov stability to ensure the robust control for the quadcopter even without knowing the upper bound for disturbances. Applying the same external disturbances, we use a numerical simulation to compare our algorithm to recent alternatives, such as normal adaptive sliding mode control, super-twisting sliding mode control, modified super-twisting sliding mode control, and nonsingular terminal sliding mode control. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm.