A multivariable adaptive control scheme for automatic carrier landing of UAV

Abstract

This paper studies a multivariable model reference adaptive control (MRAC) scheme for the automatic carrier-landing control problem of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with system dynamics of nonlinearity, multivariable coupling and parametric uncertainty. A complete automatic carrier landing system (ACLS) for carrier-based UAVs is developed, which consists of a guidance subsystem and a flight control subsystem. The MRAC scheme is based on a state feedback for output tracking framework with relaxed design conditions, which guarantees the reference glide slope tracking. Simulation results of a nonlinear UAV model demonstrate that the multivariable MRAC based ACLS has a better carrier-landing performance than a fixed control based ACLS.