Takeoff/landing control based on acceleration measurements for VTOL aircraft

This paper presents a takeoff/landing control method to force a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft with acceleration measurements to track a given reference trajectory. The control development is based on a nonlinear double integrator. The proposed double integrator can estimate the position and velocity from the acceleration measurement, and the drift phenomenon can be corrected. Conditions are given ensuring finite-time stability of the double integrator. Moreover, a control law based on the nonlinear double integrator is designed to stabilize the flight dynamics. The merits of the method include its simple implementation and interesting application. Numerical simulations confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.