This paper presents a robust constraint backstepping control scheme for high performance aircraft attitude tracking in the presence of physical constraints, model uncertainties and unsteady effects. The six-degree-of-freedom aircraft model with unsteady aerodynamics is first established, of which the characteristics are investigated through open-loop analysis. Based on the immersion and invariance approach, a state observer is developed to estimate the unmeasurable unsteady aerodynamic states. The unsteady effects are then compensated in the controller design where the bounds of estimate errors and model uncertainties are used to increase robustness. In addition, a command filter is introduced to impose physical constraints on states and control inputs and overcome the ‘explosion of terms’ problem. An auxiliary system of which the states are applied to the controller design is constructed as well to evaluate the constraint effects. Furthermore, stability of the closed-loop system and convergence of the tracking error are proven by Lyapunov stability theorem. Finally, several numerical simulations are performed to verify the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed control scheme.
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