{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,14]],"date-time":"2026-10-14T16:12:17Z","timestamp":1791994337416,"version":"4.4.0"},"reference-count":34,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"22","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,18]],"date-time":"2025-11-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1763424000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Civil Aviation University of China","award":["25CAFUC03022"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["25CAFUC03022"]}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["6247071842"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["6247071842"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Accurate trajectory tracking of quadrotor UAVs remains challenging due to highly nonlinear dynamics, model uncertainties, and time-varying external disturbances, which make it difficult to achieve both precise position tracking and stable attitude regulation under control constraints. To tackle these coupled problems, this paper develops a hierarchical control framework in which the outer-loop particle swarm optimization (PSO)-compensated model predictive controller (PSMC) adaptively mitigates prediction errors and enhances robustness, while the inner-loop enhanced linear quadratic regulator (LQR), augmented with gain scheduling and control-rate relaxation, accelerates attitude convergence and ensures smooth control actions under varying flight conditions. A Lyapunov-based stability analysis is conducted to ensure closed-loop convergence. Simulation results on a helical reference trajectory show that, compared with the conventional MPC\u2013LQR baseline, the proposed framework reduces the mean tracking errors by more than 13.2%, 17.1%, and 28% in the x-, y-, and z-directions under calm conditions, and by more than 34%, 26.2%, and 46.8% under wind disturbances. These results prove that the proposed hierarchical PSMC\u2013LQR framework achieves superior trajectory tracking accuracy, strong robustness, and high practical implement ability for quadrotor control applications.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s25227032","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,19]],"date-time":"2025-11-19T11:17:27Z","timestamp":1763551047000},"page":"7032","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["A Hierarchical PSMC\u2013LQR Control Framework for Accurate Quadrotor Trajectory Tracking"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"25","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0000-6924-6541","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Shiliang","family":"Chen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, 46 Nanchang Road, Guanghan 618307, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xinyu","family":"Zhu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, 46 Nanchang Road, Guanghan 618307, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yichao","family":"Fang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, 46 Nanchang Road, Guanghan 618307, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yucheng","family":"Zhan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, 46 Nanchang Road, Guanghan 618307, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Dan","family":"Han","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, 46 Nanchang Road, Guanghan 618307, China"},{"name":"University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China"},{"name":"Institute of Electrical Engineering Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yun","family":"Qiu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, 46 Nanchang Road, Guanghan 618307, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yaru","family":"Sun","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, 46 Nanchang Road, Guanghan 618307, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"10","DOI":"10.1016\/j.isatra.2018.11.015","article-title":"Robust H\u221e attitude tracking control of a quadrotor UAV on SO(3) via variation-based linearization and interval matrix approach","volume":"87","author":"Wang","year":"2019","journal-title":"ISA Trans."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"203","DOI":"10.1080\/00207721.2019.1622815","article-title":"Dual-loop integral sliding mode control for robust trajectory tracking of a quadrotor","volume":"51","author":"Wang","year":"2020","journal-title":"Int. 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