Dynamics Modeling and Control of Vertical/Short Take-Off and Landing Aircraft During Take-Off and Landing Phases

This paper proposes a trajectory tracking control scheme for vertical/short take-off and landing (V/STOL) vehicles. Owing to their high number of controllable degrees of freedom and strong nonlinearity, the design of flight control systems for such vehicles presents considerable challenges, particularly in developing controllers capable of accurately tracking specified trajectories. Building on existing control strategies for various vehicle types, this study introduces an extended control framework tailored for V/STOL systems. The proposed scheme consists of two nested loops: an outer position control loop and an inner attitude control loop. The position loop employs a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control algorithm, whereas the attitude loop utilizes an anti-saturation integral sliding mode control algorithm. This approach effectively alleviates the integral oversaturation issue inherent in conventional sliding mode methods and suppresses buffeting through a boundary layer technique. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed control strategy.