High-level spatial Dubins airplane-based reference smoothing with low-level geometric tracking for quadrotor control

2026-07-13

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenge of reference trajectory tracking for quadrotors navigating laterally constrained paths, such as those defined by obstacle boundaries. A novel two-layer control architecture is proposed: at the high level, a Dubins airplane model smooths and decouples the reference trajectory through dimensionality reduction, enabling either offline or receding-horizon optimization; at the low level, a geometric tracking controller based on the full quadrotor dynamics ensures high-precision trajectory following. By synergistically integrating the spatial modeling capability of the Dubins model with geometric control strategies, the approach significantly enhances tracking performance in complex, constrained environments while maintaining computational efficiency. This makes it particularly suitable for autonomous quadrotor flight in narrow or structured spaces.

Abstract

A method for the control of quadrotors is presented. It is composed of a high-level reference smoothing step and a low-level reference tracking step. The high-level step leverages the Dubins airplane model for dimensionality reduction and reduced computational complexity, and exploits its structure for decoupling, spatial modeling and the formulation of a small linear program. The low-level step leverages a geometric tracking controller, which is based on the full quadrotor model. The method is designed for the tracking of references subject to lateral constraints along the path. An example is the tracking of references along obstacle contours. It is differentiated between two different setups. Either the high-level planning step is conducted once and offline, or, alternatively, the high-level planning step is conducted recedingly online in closed-loop over a limited spatial prediction horizon.

Problem

• quadrotor control
• reference tracking
• lateral constraints
• obstacle contours
• spatial path

Innovation

• Dubins airplane
• reference smoothing
• geometric tracking
• quadrotor control
• spatial planning