Trajectory Planning and Tracking for Carrier Aircraft-Tractor System Based on Autonomous and Cooperative Movement

The solution of how to plan out the cooperative moving trajectory autonomously and control the motion of carrier-based aircraft timely and accurately is the key to helping improve the overall deck operation efficiency. The main problem discussed in this article is coordinated trajectory planning strategy for multicarrier aircraft and cooperative control between tractor and carrier aircraft. First, the kinematic model and three-degree-of-freedom dynamics model of the towbarless traction system are established. Then, a coevolution mechanism for aircraft systems is proposed to ensure coordinated trajectory planning among multiple aircraft and a trajectory adapted to the tractor-aircraft system is generated based on the hybrid RRT∗ algorithm. Next, a double-layer closed-loop controller is designed for the trajectory tracking of the tractor-aircraft system on the deck under the constraints of incomplete constraints and various physical conditions. It includes an outer model predictive controller which effectively controls the cooperative motion between the carrier aircraft and tractor and an inner torque control strategy based on adaptive fuzzy PID control which strictly ensures the stability of the system. Simulation results demonstrate that the controller is more rapid, more accurate, and more robust in tracking line trajectory with initial deviation, sine curve with large curvature, and complex trajectories on decks compared with backstepping control and LQR algorithm.