Lift-Augmentation Aware Backstepping Control for an Underactuated Bird-Scale Flapping Wing Vehicle
Shijun Zhou, Aidan Orr, Nak-seung Patrick Hyun
Abstract
In this paper, we aim to design a nonlinear controller to achieve altitude tracking and pitch stabilization for a class of underactuated nonlinear systems, namely, bird-scale flapping-wing vehicles (BFWVs) with a single actuator. The major challenge lies in the underactuated nonlinear system dynamics and the dependency of lift generation on forward translational velocity. In this paper, a lift-augmentation-aware reduced-order model for a class of BFWV incapable of hovering is introduced with an emphasis on the sagittal plane (body <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$YZ$</tex-math></inline-formula> plane) dynamics. A feasible fixed point for altitude control of the underactuated system is studied, and a Lyapunov-based switching controller is developed to force the states to stabilize at the desired altitude. We demonstrate its effectiveness in both numerical simulations and closed-loop indoor experiments and address the challenges of controlling the underactuated BFWV.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{ral2026_liftaugmentation,
title = {Lift-Augmentation Aware Backstepping Control for an Underactuated Bird-Scale Flapping Wing Vehicle},
author = {Shijun Zhou and Aidan Orr and Nak-seung Patrick Hyun},
booktitle = {RA-L 2026},
year = {2026}
}