Adaptive Sliding Mode Controller Design for Reconfiguration of Organic Flight Array

This paper presents an attitude control system for an organic flight array(OFA) which is a novel unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) concept to consist of multiple ducted-fan UAVs. The OFA is able to be assembled or separated by single modules, the ducted-fan UAVs, to fulfill operation missions such as indoor/outdoor monitoring, communication relay, and system jamming. Therefore, the array can have various configurations depending on purposes of operation or environment. Physical parameters of the OFA change during the mission according to the reconfigurable feature, which generates dynamic uncertainties. Moreover, there might be an interactive effect due to connection between the ducted-fan modules. To cope with these uncertainties, a sliding mode control technique is used with applying an adaptive law in this paper. In addition, the performance of the designed controller is verified via numerical simulation.