Stable and accurate tracking control of tail-sitter aircraft in all flight modes

Purpose This paper aims to design a global controller that is operational throughout all flight modes and less dependent on an accurate model. Design/methodology/approach By adopting the interconnection and damping assignment passivity-based control (IDA-PBC) technology and compensating extra inputs for handling the unknown dynamics and time-varying disturbances, a model-free control (MFC)-based global controller is proposed. Findings Test results indicate that the designed controllers are more suitable for actual flight as they have smaller position tracking errors and energy consumption in all flight phases than the excellent model-free controller intelligent-PID. Practical implications The designed global controller, which works in all flight modes without adjusting its structure and parameters, can realize a stable and accurate tracking control of a tail-sitter and improve the resistance to unknown disturbances and model uncertainties. Originality/value The newly-designed controller is considered as an enhanced version of the traditional MFC. It further improves the control effect by using the poorly known dynamics of the system and choosing the IDA-PBC as the control auxiliary input. This method eliminates the unnecessary dynamics to continuously stabilize the vehicle with suitable energy consumption covering its entire flight envelope.