Autonomous execution of aircraft supermaneuvers with switching nonlinear backstepping control

Control system design for agile maneuvering aircraft poses several challenges, such as underactuated nonlinear dynamics, input saturation limits and loss of control effectiveness in high angle of attack regions of the flight envelope. Previous work in the field developed a variety of switched nonlinear control methods to enable precise tracking of agile maneuver profiles. However, demonstrating autonomous execution of challenging agile maneuvers, such as the ones that require simultaneous tracking of both translational and attitude state variables is still an open problem. In this study, we develop switched nonlinear backstepping control laws tailored towards the execution of such agile maneuvers. In particular, we demonstrate the applicability of our design on a high fidelity F-16 model and two supermaneuvers: Pugachev’s Cobra and Rolling Circle. In addition, we present a numerical study for analysis of stability of these controllers by introducing the notion of Region of Recoverability (ROR). ROR plots outline the subsets of the state space where the switching of controllers is feasible, which helps the designer to assess the stability of switched control system.