A Robust Hybrid Fuzzy-Fuzzy Cascade and Sliding Mode Control Scheme for Tracking in Aerial Manipulators

This paper presents a robust hybrid control strategy based on a fuzzy-fuzzy cascade architecture combined with a sliding mode control (SMC) scheme for trajectory tracking in an aerial manipulator. The primary objective of the fuzzy-fuzzy cascade control is to enhance the robustness of conventional fuzzy controllers by leveraging their adaptability and flexibility, while simultaneously incorporating the strong robustness properties of SMC. A PID-based sliding surface is implemented within the SMC component, and its gains are tuned through fuzzy logic. The proposed controller integrates the dynamic model of the aerial manipulator into its structure, which contributes to compensating for system nonlinearities. Specifically, the dynamic model provides structural compensation for nonlinearities, the cascade fuzzy scheme estimates and adapts to parametric uncertainties, and the SMC ensures robustness against unmodeled disturbances. Simulation tests were conducted to evaluate the performance of the control law in trajectory tracking. Furthermore, the system was subjected to model uncertainties and external disturbances. The results demonstrate the effective performance and robustness of the proposed control approach, achieving improvements in the ISE ranging from 52% to 96% compared to other control techniques.