Path-tracking control of a tractor-aircraft system

Abstract

An aircraft tractor plays a significant role as a kind of important marine transport and support equipment. It’s necessary to study its controlling and manoeuvring stability to improve operation efficiency. A virtual prototyping model of the tractor-aircraft system based on Lagrange’s equation of the first kind with Lagrange mutipliers was established in this paper. According to the towing characteristics, a path-tracking controller using fuzzy logic theory was designed. Direction control herein was carried out through a compensatory tracking approach. Interactive co-simulation was performed to validate the path-tracking behavior in closed-loop. Simulation results indicated that the tractor followed the reference courses precisely on a flat ground.

Keywords

path-tracking controller / aircraft tractor / preconcert route / fuzzy control / co-simulation