23rd Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, 8-13 September, 2002, Toronto, Canada
Paper ICAS 2002-5.6.2

AN AUTONOMOUS CONTROL TECHNIQUE FOR LAUNCHING SHIP BASED UNMANNED AIR VEHICLES (UAVS) IN EXTREME CONDITIONS

M. R. Crump, C. Bil
RMIT University, Australia

Keywords: uav, launch, control, n4sid

This paper presents a solution to the autonomous control problem for launching unmanned air vehicles from maritime platforms in extreme conditions. A controller is developed utilising both linear robust modern control theory and a new approach involving trajectory optimisation and system identification. The resulting controller is found to allow the aircraft to fly to its physical limits. This controller has been found to have very good robustness properties through extensive simulation.

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