The design of smooth switching control with application to V/STOL aircraft dynamics under input and output constraints

Abstract

This paper presents a smooth switching gain-scheduled control approach for linear parameter varying (LPV) system dynamics, indexed by a scalar varying parameter. The proposed approach is demonstrated by application to the planar vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) aircraft dynamics subject to input and output constraints. In the design of switching control, the switch logic determines the switching process between control laws. The usual switching logics use the instantaneous switching manner, which can cause discontinuous chattering control signal. By performing convex weightings between two individual control laws for neighboring subsystems, the proposed smooth switching gain-scheduled control approach can provide improved performance but does not arouse control signal chattering. For the studied application, the nonlinear aircraft dynamics are represented in the form of LPV systems with parameter dependence on attitude angle. The resulting design is verified by the obtained relative stability and time response simulations. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society