Stabilizing the velocity of fixed wing aircraft by applying potential shaping techniques

What is it about?

This paper proposes using energy shaping techniques to control the velocity of an aircraft during wings level steady flight at a given speed, course angle and climb angle. The system is split into two subsystems: the first corresponding to rotational dynamics and another describing the translational dynamics. Energy shaping techniques are utilized on the first subsystem and is proven to be asymptotically stable via Lyapunov's direct method. The second subsystem is shown to be input tostate stable with the first system acting as inputs. Finally, the whole system is shown to be asymptotically stable.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

The control algorithm developed provides a larger operational envelope than linear controllers while not requiring exorbitant online computational complexity other nonlinear approaches typically demand.

Perspectives