A Disturbance Modeling and Adaptive Control Method for Autonomous Aerial Refueling
The aerodynamic disturbance modeling and docking control design method is designed for the proximity docking phase of the tanker/receiver aircraft.Firstly,the equivalent models of interference such as atmospheric turbulence,detoured flow from the receiver aircraft,and wake flow of the tanker are established to describe the effect of airflow disturbance on the drogue and the influence of the airflow angle and aerodynamic moment on the receiver.Then,a sliding-mode observer-based adaptive interference suppression controller is designed for the proximity docking control.Based on the dynamic inversion baseline control law,a second-order sliding mode observer is introduced into the outer-loop and an angular rate observer is introduced into the inner-loop to adaptively suppress long-term interference.Finally,the accuracy of the sliding-mode observer-based adaptive interference suppression controller for probe tracking the center of drogue under the disturbance of airflow is verified through the integrated visual simulation.