Design of a multi modal control framework for agile maneuvering UCAV

This paper discusses the structure of a multi modal control framework for generation and control of aggressive maneuver profiles for agile unmanned vehicles. It is shown that any arbitrary flight maneuver can be decomposed into simpler flight modes and modal parameters, which are derived from combat maneuvers and aerobatics. Feasible maneuver generation problem is complicated by both sequence of the maneuver modes and envelope constraints on control inputs. These problems are solved by developing mode transition rules and a set of agility metrics that bounds the domain. Overall system with flight modes, transition conditions and domains is shown to be a finite state machine which spans full flight envelope of maneuvers of UCAV, where local control of each mode results in control of full flight maneuver. Thus, maneuver controlling problem is reduced into lower dimensional maneuver mode and parameter search.