Tracking control for laser-driven micro-airplane

The purpose of this paper is to design the control system of the integrated laser propulsion/tracking system for realizing a continuous flight and control of a laser-driven micro-airplane. The laser propulsion is significantly effective to achieve the miniaturization and lightening of the micro-airplane. The laser-driven micro-airplane has been studied with a paper-craft airplane and YAG laser, resulting in a successful glide of the airplane. High performance on laser tracking control is required to achieve the repetitive propulsion for the continuous flight. This work presents a control design strategy based on the generalized Kalman-Yakubovic-Popov lemma to achieve this requirement. Experiments have been carried out to evaluate the performance of the integrated laser propulsion/tracking system.