Structured Adaptive Model Inversion Applied to Tracking Aggressive Aircraft Maneuvers

A model reference adaptive control formulation is presented that uses the dynamical structure of the state space descriptions of a large class of systems. Of particular interest, the formulations enable the imposition of exact kinematic differential equation constraints upon the adaptation process that compensates for model errors and disturbances at the acceleration level. The resulting closed loop error dynamics are shown to be globally asymptotically stable and all signals within the closed loop system are shown to be bounded. The utility of the resulting structured adaptive control formulation is studied by considering the problem of tracking an aggressive aircraft maneuver in the presence of large unknown model errors. The reference maneuver is an aggressive turn in the horizontal plane with the altitude and velocity held constant. Parameter uncertainties are incorporated explicitly in both the aerodynamic stability derivatives and the control influence matrix. A simplified nonlinear model for the equations of motion is considered and the approach is validated against a reference trajectory generated using the same model and a more complex medium-fidelity simulation.