Global Path Following Control for the Planar Vertical Takeoff and Landing Aircraft

This paper presents a closed-form solution for the global path following control of the planar vertical takeoff and landing (PVTOL) aircraft. The proposed control scheme consists of two steps. In the first step, a reference model is well constructed to generate a reference trajectory and a reference velocity satisfying some necessary constraints. In the second step, the backstepping control technique is utilized to develop a tracking controller that enables the aircraft to track the generated reference commands. Consequently, the obtained controller allows the aircraft to converge to the desired path at the desired speed under arbitrary initial conditions. The desired path can be a general geometric curve, and the desired speed can be time-varying. The main novelty of the proposed control architecture lies in the design of the reference model, which serves as a command filter and resolves the conflict between the global convergence to the desired path and the velocity assignment. The numerical simulation results verify the effectiveness of the control scheme.