Robust tracking-surveillance and landing over a mobile target by quasi-integral-sliding mode and Hopf bifurcation

This paper addresses the problem of a robust UAV tracking, surveillance and landing of a mobile ground target. The translational and angular dynamics of the vehicle are affected by bounded uncertainties; a Quasi-Integral Sliding Mode control is designed to obtain robustness from nearly the initial time. The flying mission considers three different dynamics of movement: the take-off to the desired altitude, the relative circular surveillance motion around the mobile ground target and eventually precise landing over the ground vehicle. This paper introduces a novel dynamic motion planning generator to perform such tracking maneuvers. It is based on the solution of a second order nonlinear differential equation, whose solution is force to move in a set of new parameterized ‘Bifurcation Sliding Mode Surfaces’ that exploit the Hopf Bifurcation properties to change the dynamic around the equilibrium point. A temporal switching technique is introduced for changing between three different bifurcation sliding surfaces at different time intervals. To illustrate that the quadcopter effectively performs the desired maneuvers, a computer animation is provided at the end of the paper.