Straight-line path-following control for roll-out phase of the equipped-skid aircraft

Abstract

The paper deals with straight-line path-following control design for the aircraft equipped with skid landing gears. First, a simple yet accurate on-ground aircraft model is established, which takes into account the effects of the aerodynamic and ground forces. To improve the directional stability of the aircraft during the roll-out phase, a novel skid with variable friction coefficients is proposed. Second, the path-following problem is converted to the attitude control problem by constructing a guiding vector field that generates the commanded course, and then an improved error function is proposed to manage the trade-off between the convergence rate and the strong lateral maneuvers. To achieve a good performance in path following, the incremental nonlinear control allocation is applied to make full use of three available actuators (nose wheel, variable friction skid, and rudder). The expected path here is the runway centerline so as to avoid runway excursions. Finally, the effectiveness and robustness of the path-following control are validated on different initial conditions. Results show that the proposed skid structure and control scheme are propitious to enhancing the resistance to crosswind. Moreover, the maximum lateral displacement during the path-following process decreases, especially in the low-speed region.