Landing control design for a VTOL aircraft

• Published in: IET control theory & applications Vol. 14; no. 6; pp. 855 - 864
• Main Authors: Ye, Huawen, Li, Meng, Wan, Neng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Institution of Engineering and Technology 16.04.2020
• Subjects: aircraft control; aircraft landing guidance; bounded uncertain coefficient; closed loop systems; control system synthesis; convergence; convergence of numerical methods; converging input; converging term; fourth‐order integrator; landing aircraft; landing control design; Lyapunov methods; nonlinear control systems; Research Article; stability; state stability theory; tracking error system; two‐dimensional subsystem; uncertain systems; VTOL aircraft; converging term; converging input; convergence; uncertain systems; control system synthesis; state stability theory; convergence of numerical methods; landing aircraft; aircraft control; two-dimensional subsystem; landing control design; closed loop systems; aircraft landing guidance; VTOL aircraft; nonlinear control systems; tracking error system; stability; Lyapunov methods; fourth-order integrator; bounded uncertain coefficient
• ISSN: 1751-8644; 1751-8652
• DOI: 10.1049/iet-cta.2018.6244

This study investigates the problem of forcing a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft to land on a carrier. Once we obtain the tracking error system, we take the strategies such as preliminarily treating a two-dimensional subsystem, recombining subsystems, separating out a converging term, and using the ‘converging input converging state (CICS)’ stability theory. As a consequence, we only need to stabilise a fourth-order integrator that is subject to a bounded uncertain coefficient. Then, we assign a partially-saturated controller to deal with the perturbed fourth-order integrator and particularly the uncertain coefficient. With the suggested algorithm, the carrier is allowed to evolve in three dimensions and the landing control design has a simple expression.