Departure resilient control for autonomous air vehicles

A new approach for developing guidance and control laws for aircraft that have departed controlled flight is presented. The method leverages and produces flight trajectories similar to what pilots would perform. The method induces a periodic orbit and then escapes from the periodic orbit into normal flight. The problem is approached from the inertial reference frame in order to better define the behavior of periodic orbit dynamics. A control law that effectively maps the aircraft inertial dynamics to bifurcations facilitates the production of periodic orbit behavior. In addition to circular orbits, the control law proves to expand the set to elliptical orbits and presents a framework for alternative orbit geometries.