Backstepping - Sliding Mode Controllers Applied to a Fixed-Wing UAV

This paper deals with the design of five controllers, based on Backstepping and Sliding Modes, which are applied to a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). We are interested to realize a comparative analysis of such methodologies in order to know what controller has a better performance when they are used to the autonomous flight (altitude, yaw and roll) of a fixed-wing UAV. The designed controllers are: Backstepping, Sliding Mode control (SMC), Backstepping with Sliding Mode control, Backstepping with two Sliding Mode control, and Backstepping with high order Sliding Mode (HOSM) control. Simulation results are obtained in order to analyze the controllers performance. We finally present an experimental result, in open-loop, with the purpose of validate the magnitude of the control signals obtained in the simulations.