Communication-Efficient Robust Longitudinal Control for Commercial Aircraft During Ascent

Abstract

The ascent phase of commercial aircraft involves strong nonlinearities, unknown disturbances, and communication constraints, making robust longitudinal control a challenging task. This seminar presents a communication-efficient robust longitudinal tracking control framework for commercial aircraft during ascent. An integral sliding-mode-based disturbance compensation scheme is developed to estimate and reject unknown disturbances, while a backstepping-based controller guarantees asymptotic tracking stability of the flight path angle. To reduce unnecessary control updates, a switched event-triggered control mechanism is introduced, which adapts to different flight conditions while preserving closed-loop stability and excluding Zeno behavior. Simulation results on a Boeing 747 aircraft demonstrate improved tracking performance, strong disturbance rejection, and enhanced communication efficiency.

Speaker

Dr Zhijian Hu is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow with the LAAS-CNRS, France. He received the PhD degree in Control Science and Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, School of Astronautics, Harbin, China, in January 2022. From March 2022 to November 2023, he was a Research Fellow at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research focuses on advanced control theory and the applications in autonomous systems. He has published over 40 peer-reviewed journal papers, one monograph, and two book chapters. He serves as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, and IEEE Industry Applications Magazine.