This work proposes an adaptive sliding-mode controller for quadrotors that is globally stable, fast, and efficient, resolving major issues like quaternion unwinding and adaptive gain overgrowth. Hardware tests on a 32 g nano-quadrotor show superior tracking, robustness, and agile maneuvers compared to benchmark methods.

Despite extensive research on sliding mode control (SMC) design for quadrotors, the existing approaches have certain limitations.Euler angle-based SMC formulations suffer from poor performance in high-pitch or -roll maneuvers.