Trajectory tracking control and maneuver regulation control for the CTOL aircraft model

We study several flight control problems for a conventional aircraft take off and landing (CTOL) flight control model, a simplified nonlinear model for aircraft longitudinal flight dynamics. In particular, we study the execution of a maneuver for which the aircraft is intended to follow a path in a vertical plane corresponding to a specified change in altitude. First we formulate the problem as a nonlinear output tracking control problem. Next we formulate a related path following or maneuver regulation problem. A controller is developed for this case, and it is compared with a controller that solves the related output tracking problem. This comparison demonstrates the practical value of the maneuver regulation controller. Our approach throughout is to make use of nonlinear control theory, which is complicated by the non-minimum phase characteristics of the CTOL model