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Aggressive Longitudinal Aircraft Path Tracking Using Nonlinear Control |
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| Authors: | Saif A Al-Hiddabi N Harris McClamroch |
| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Sulatn Qaboos University, P.O. Box 33 Muscat-Al-Khod 123, Sultanate of Oman.
Saif A. Al-Hiddabi: received his B. Eng. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Sultan Qaboos University, Sultanate of Oman in 1992, the M.Sc. degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA, in 1995, M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering (Systems) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA, in 2000 and Ph.D degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA, in 2000. He is currently assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the Sultan Qaboos University of Oman. His research interest include dynamics and control of nonlinear systems with application to mechanical systems and flying vehicles.;2. Department of Aerospace Engineering. The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109–2140, USA. Support from the National Science Foundation, Grant ECS-9906018, is gratefully acknowledged. N. Harris McClamroch: received a Ph.D. degree in engineering mechanics, from The University of Texas at Austin. Since 1967 he has been at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he is a Professor and past Chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering. He has published numerous papers in the areas of robustness, optimal control, digital feedback, statistical estimation, stochastic control, and nonlinear control. He has worked on many control engineering problems arising in flexible space structures, robotics, automated manufacturing, control technologies for buildings and bridges, and aerospace flight systems. Dr. McClamroch is a Fellow of the IEEE, he received the Control Systems Society Distinguished Member Award, and he is a recipient of the IEEE Third Millennium Medal. He has served as Associate Editor and Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, as Program Chair for the 1994 Conference on Decision and Control, and as General Chair of the 1999 Conference on Control Applications. He has held numerous positions in the IEEE Control Systems Society, including Vice President for Publication Activities, Vice President for Financial Activities, and President. |
| Abstract: | We study the problem of converting a trajectory tracking controller to a path tracking controller for a nonlinear non-minimum phase longitudinal aircraft model. The solution of the trajectory tracking problem is based on the requirement that the aircraft follows a given time parameterized trajectory in inertial frame. In this paper we introduce an alternative nonlinear control design approach called path tracking control. The path tracking approach is based on designing a nonlinear state feedback controller that maintains a desired speed along a desired path with closed loop stability. This design approach is different from the trajectory tracking approach where aircraft speed and position are regulated along the desired path. The path tracking controller regulates the position errors transverse to the desired path but it does not regulate the position error along the desired path. First, a trajectory tracking controller, consisting of feedforward and static state feedback, is designed to guarantee uniform asymptotic trajectory tracking. The feedforward is determined by solving a stable noncausal inversion problem. Constant feedback gains are determined based on LQR with singular perturbation approach. A path tracking controller is then obtained from the trajectory tracking controller by introducing a suitable state projection. |
| Keywords: | Longitudinal flight path tracking nonlinear control |