Guidance and Control Techniques of Carrier-Based Aircraft for Automatic Carrier Landing

We summarize the guidance and control techniques of automatic carrier landing for carrier-based aircraft.First,we analyze the carrier landing operations of the manned fixed-wing aircraft,unmanned fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.Second,we look into the navigation and guidance system and the flight control methods for current different aircraft.Finally,we draw several conclusions of the development prospects for aircraft carrier landing,including the precision landing control techniques,precision approach and landing guidance techniques,and adaptive,reconfigurable and intelligent flight control techniques.

Parameter Optimization of Nose Landing Gear Considering Both Take-off and Landing Performance of Catapult Take-off Carrier-Based Aircraft

Optimization of the parameters of landing gear systems with double-stage air springs of catapult take-off carrier-based aircraft is here studied based on the mathematical equations of the classic dual mass spring-damper dynamic model.Certain standards for both take-off and landing performance are put forward.The contradictory factors between take-off and landing processes are analyzed.The optimization of oil in the pin area and the area near the rear oil hole is performed.Then these optimized parameters are used to assess the influence of the initial pressure of the low chamber,the ratio of the high chamber to the low chamber,and the tire inflation pressure on the performance of arresting landing and catapult take-off.The influences of these parameters on carrier-based aircraft and the aircraft-carrier on aircraft catapult take-off is also assessed.Based on the results of the simulation,respective take-off criteria must be drafted considering different types of aircraft and different take-off load cases,all of which must be matched to parameters relevant to catapult take-off.

Dynamics Analysis of Carrier-Based Aircraft with Off-Center Catapult Launch

In order to enhance the safety of the catapult launch of the carrier-based aircraft,the catapult launch multibody dynamic model is established aiming at the problem of off center catapult launch.The whole catapult process including four stages which are buffering,tensioning,releasing and taxiing is taken into consideration and the body dynamics of the off-center catapult during each stage is analyzed.The catapult launch dynamic differences between the conditions only considering taxiing and that considering four stages are compared,and the effects of the different initial off center distances considering four stages on the attitude,landing gear load and acceleration of the carrier based aircraft during catapult launch are discussed.The results show that only considering taxiing may underestimate the dynamics of the carrier-based aircraft substantially.When taking four stages into consideration,the initial off-center distance has small influence on the aircraft dynamic characteristics during buffering and tensioning but has larger influence on that during releasing and taxiing.The increase of the off-center distance will cause the enhancement of the aircraft rolling and yawing,which may lead to the load difference between the left and right landing gears and the increase of the aircraft lateral acceleration.The establishment and simulation of the catapult launch multi body dynamic model founded on buffering,tensioning,releasing and taxiing provide reference for the carrier-based aircraft design and analysis of the catapult launch dynamics.

Optimal Preview Control for Automatic Carrier Landing System of Carrier-Based Aircraft with Air Wake

Carrier-based aircraft carrier landing is a special kind of tracking control problem and not suitable for classical control methods,which may miss the desired performance or result in overdesign.Therefore,we present an optimal preview control for automatic carrier landing system(ACLS)by using state information of system,as well as future reference information,which can avoid the shortcomings of classical control methods.Since the flight performance of carrier-based aircraft is disturbed by air wake when the aircraft flies near the area of carrier stern,we design a disturbance rejection strategy to ensure that aircraft track the glide path with high precision and robustness.Further,carrier-based aircraft is a complex nonlinear system.However,the nonlinear model of carrier-based aircraft can be linearized at equilibrium landing state and decoupled into the longitudinal model and the lateral model.Therefore,an optimal preview control system is designed.The simulation results of a carrier-based aircraft show that the optimal preview control system can effectively suppress air wake.Tracking accuracy of optimal preview controller is higher than that of the proportional integral differential(PID)control system.

Study on Data Acquisition and Storage Based on FPGA in Carrier-based Photoelectric Warning System

In order to capture and storage video data real-time for carrier-based photoelectric warning system, An acquisition and storage system based on FPGA is designed. To complete the asynchronous interface timing of the camera and the storage system, the video data which come from infrared camera and visible light camera is stored to FIFO by FPGA, and then four SDRAM as cache and ping-pong operation cache-data storage to the CF card, this structure not only takes advantage of high-speed reading and writing skills of CF card, but also to ensure the integrity of the video data. In the final experiment proved that the system can be effectively applied to ships the photoelectric warning scanning system, its performance fully meet the needs of practical application.

A bi-population immune algorithm for weapon transportation support scheduling problem with pickup and delivery on aircraft carrier deck

The weapon transportation support scheduling problem on aircraft carrier deck is the key to restricting the sortie rate and combat capability of carrier-based aircraft.This paper studies the problem and presents a novel solution architecture.Taking the interference of the carrier-based aircraft deck layout on the weapon transportation route and precedence constraint into consideration,a mixed integer formulation is established to minimize the total objective,which is constituted of makespan,load variance and accumulative transfer time of support unit.Solution approach is developed for the model.Firstly,based on modeling the carrier aircraft parked on deck as convex obstacles,the path library of weapon transportation is constructed through visibility graph and Warshall-Floyd methods.We then propose a bi-population immune algorithm in which a population-based forward/backward scheduling technique,local search schemes and a chaotic catastrophe operator are embedded.Besides,the randomkey solution representation and serial scheduling generation scheme are adopted to conveniently obtain a better solution.The Taguchi method is additionally employed to determine key parameters of the algorithm.Finally,on a set of generated realistic instances,we demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms all compared algorithms designed for similar optimization problems and can significantly improve the efficiency,and that the established model and the bi-population immune algorithm can effectively respond to the weapon support requirements of carrier-based aircraft under different sortie missions.

基于多Agent的舰载机弹射起飞仿真层次模型(英文)

With the aid of multi-agent based modeling approach to complex systems, the hierarchy simulation models of carrier-based aircraft catapult launch are developed. Ocean, carrier, aircraft, and atmosphere are treated as aggregation agents, the detailed components like catapult, landing gears, and disturbances are considered as meta-agents, which belong to their aggregation agent. Thus, the model with two layers is formed i.e. the aggregation agent layer and the meta-agent layer. The information communication among all agents is described. The meta-agents within one aggregation agent communicate with each other directly by information sharing, but the meta-agents, which belong to different aggregation agents exchange their information through the aggregation layer first, and then perceive it from the sharing environment, that is the aggregation agent. Thus, not only the hierarchy model is built, but also the environment perceived by each agent is specified. Meanwhile, the problem of balancing the independency of agent and the resource consumption brought by real-time communication within multi-agent system （MAS） is resolved. Each agent involved in carrier-based aircraft catapult launch is depicted, with considering the interaction within disturbed atmospheric environment and multiple motion bodies including carrier, aircraft, and landing gears. The models of reactive agents among them are derived based on tensors, and the perceived messages and inner frameworks of each agent are characterized. Finally, some results of a simulation instance are given. The simulation and modeling of dynamic system based on multi-agent system is of benefit to express physical concepts and logical hierarchy clearly and precisely. The system model can easily draw in kinds of other agents to achieve a precise simulation of more complex system. This modeling technique makes the complex integral dynamic equations of multibodies decompose into parallel operations of single agent, and it is convenient to expand, maintain, and reuse the program codes.

Dynamics Model of Carrier-based Aircraft Landing Gears Landed on Dynamic Deck

In order to study the carrier-based aircraft landing laws landed on the carrier, the dynamics model of carrier-based aircraft landing gears landed on dynamic deck is built. In this model, the interactions of the carrier-based aircraft landing attitude and the damping force acting on landing gears are considered, and the influence of dynamic deck is introduced into the model through the deck normal vectors. The wheel-deck coordinate system is put forward to solve the complex simulation problem of force-onwheel which comes from the dynamic deck. At last, by simulation, it is demonstrated that the model can be applied to landing attitude when the carrier-based aircraft is landing on the dynamic deck, it is also proved that the model is comprehensive and suitable for any abnormal landing situation.

基于张量的舰载机滑跃式起飞动力学建模(英文)

A general mathematical model of carrier-based aircraft ski jump take-off is derived based on tensor. The carrier, the aircraft body and the movable parts of the landing gears are treated as independent entities. These entities are assembled into a multi-rigid-body system with flexible links. Dynamical equations of each entity are derived on the basis of the Newton law and the Euler transformation. Using the invariance property of the tensor, the dynamical and kinematical equations are converted to tensor forms which are invariant under time-dependent coordinate transformations. Then the tensor-formed equations are expressed by the matrix operation. Differential equation group of the matrix form is formulated for the programming. The closure of the model is discussed, and the simulation results are given.

Multi-body dynamic system simulation of carrier-based aircraft ski-jump takeoff

The flight safety is threatened by the special flight conditions and the low speed of carrier-based aircraft ski-jump takeoff. The aircraft carrier motion, aircraft dynamics, landing gears and wind field of sea state are comprehensively considered to dispose this multidiscipline intersection problem. According to the particular naval operating environment of the carrier-based aircraft ski-jump takeoff, the integrated dynamic simulation models of multi-body system are developed, which involves the movement entities of the carrier, the aircraft and the landing gears, and involves takeoff instruction, control system and the deck wind disturbance. Based on Matlab/Simulink environment, the multi-body system simulation is realized. The validity of the model and the rationality of the result are verified by an example simulation of carrier-based aircraft ski-jump takeoff. The simulation model and the software are suitable for the study of the multidiscipline intersection problems which are involved in the performance, flight quality and safety of carrier-based aircraft takeoff, the effects of landing gear loads, parameters of carrier deck, etc.

Automatic Carrier Landing Control for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Based on Preview Control

For carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs),one of the important problems is the design of an automatic carrier landing system(ACLS)that would enable the UAVs to accomplish autolanding on the aircraft carrier.However,due to the movements of the flight deck with six degree-of-freedom,the autolanding becomes sophisticated.To solve this problem,an accurate and effective ACLS is developed,which is composed of an optimal preview control based flight control system and a Kalman filter based deck motion predictor.The preview control fuses the future information of the reference glide slope to improve landing precision.The reference glide slope is normally a straight line.However,the deck motion will change the position of the ideal landing point,and tracking the ideal straight glide slope may cause landing failure.Therefore,the predictive deck motion information from the deck motion predictor is used to correct the reference glide slope,which decreases the dispersion around the desired landing point.Finally,simulations are carried out to verify the performance of the designed ACLS based on a nonlinear UAV model.

FLIGHT／THRUST INTEGRATED CONTROL USINGH∞SYNTHESIS IN AUTOMATIC CARRIER LANDING

The landing task of an aircraft under low aerodynamic pressure on carrier requires precise airplane control,A flight/thrust integrated control system(FTICS)with constant ad,actual angle of attack,is developed using LMI-based H∞synthesis.The typical single input/outputspecifications are translated into the weighting functions of an H∞output-feedback synthesis problem.The motiva-tion of the work is to improve the key performance of dy-namic tracking and air disturbance attenuation.The FTICS can keep the attitude andgle and the path angle un-changeable as the airplane is passing through the ramp at which the tracking radar doesnot work and the guidance signal is terminated.For engineering application,an or-der-reduction method of the H∞controller is also pro-posed,Simulational results indicate that the system satis-fies the design requirements quite well.

VARIABLE STRUCTURE CONTROL OF AIRCRAFTFOR ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCE

Variable structure control (VSC) applied to atmospheric disturbance sup-pression is presented. The conditions are stipulated: the sliding mode existenee condi-tion, and invanance condition of atmospheric disturbanee in the variable structuresystem (VSS). A method of eigenstructure assignment technique for switching surfaeedesign is proposed. Based on different atmospheric disturbanee characteristics, such asrandom turbulence, discrete gust and wind shear, two kinds of control laws are derived that possess strong robustness. An example shows that this control approach isfeasible and effective.

Numerical simulation of aircraft arresting process with an efficient full-scale rigid-flexible coupling dynamic model

The arresting process of carrier-based aircraft is widely recognized as a challenging task,characterized by the highest accident rate among all carrier-based aircraft operations.Dynamic simulation plays a crucial role in assessing the intricate responses of the arresting process,favoring the design of carrier-based aircraft.An efficient and accurate rigid-flexible coupling model for analyzing the dynamic response of the arresting process is proposed.By combining the dynamic characteristics of airframe,landing gear,arresting hook and arresting gear system,the rigid-flexible coupling dynamic model is established to reflect the relative motion of the coupling parts and arresting load.The dynamic model is verified through simulations of landing gear landing drops and by comparing the arresting simulation results with corresponding data in the US military standard.Additionally,simulations of the arresting process under different off-center distance and aircraft yaw angle are conducted to obtain the dynamic response of the aircraft during the arresting process.The result indicates that the rigid-flexible coupling dynamic model proposed is effective for analyzing the arresting dynamics response of carrier-based aircraft.The axial force of the arresting cable on both sides of the hook engagement point,pitch and yaw angle of aircraft are inconsistent under yaw and off-center arresting.The analysis method and obtained results provide valuable references for assessing the dynamic responses of carrier-based aircraft during arresting process and offer valuable in-sights in the design of carrier-based aircraft.

Optimization of fixed aviation support resource station configuration for aircraft carrier based on aircraft dispatch mission scheduling

Before the dispatch of the carrier-based aircraft,a series of pre-flight preparation operations need to be completed on the flight deck.Flight deck fixed aviation support resource station configuration has an important impact on operation efficiency and sortie rate.However,the resource station configuration is determined during the aircraft carrier design phase and is rarely modified as required,which may not be suitable for some pre-flight preparation missions.In order to solve the above defects,the joint optimization of flight deck resource station configuration and aircraft carrier pre-flight preparation scheduling is studied in this paper,which is formulated as a two-tier optimization decision-making framework.An improved variable neighborhood search algorithm with four original neighborhood structures is presented.Dispatch mission experiment and algorithm performance comparison experiment are carried out in the computational experiment section.The correlation between the pre-flight preparation time(makespan)and flight deck cabin occupancy percentage is given,and advantages of the proposed algorithm in solving the mathematical model are verified.

Si/SiC Hybrid 5-level Active NPC Inverter for Electric Aircraft Propulsion Drive Applications

Medium voltage DC(MVDC)system is considered as a promising technology to improve the efficiency and power density of electric aircraft propulsion(EAP)drives.To adapt to the MVDC voltage level and achieve high drive performance,a five-level active neutral point clamped(5L-ANPC)inverter consisting of three-level ANPC and flying capacitor circuits is investigated,which possesses higher voltage capability,lower output harmonics,as well as mitigated dv/dt and common-mode voltage.To fulfill the requirements of high-speed operation and pursue further enhanced efficiency and power density of the inverter for the next-generation EAP drives,Silicon Carbide(SiC)semiconductor devices are considered for implementing the 5L-ANPC inverter.However,the large commutation loops associated with certain switching states of the inverter lessen the benefits of configuring all the switches as SiC devices.As a result,a hybrid Si/SiC 5L-ANPC inverter is developed with a synchronous optimal pulse(SOP)width modulation strategy for controlling the switches in cell 2 and finite-control-set model predictive controller(FCS-MPC)for those in cell 3 of the inverter.Consequently,in the proposed topology,the SiC devices are merely used for the high-frequency switches in cell 3 and the rest of the low-frequency switches are configured with Si IGBTs.This Si/SiC hybrid ANPC inverter concurrently provides high efficiency and low implementation cost at high-speed operation mode.Simulation and experimental results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid inverter.