Fault-tolerant control of automatic carrier landing using direct lift control based on nonsingular terminal sliding mode and active disturbance rejection control

This paper presents a fault-tolerant control scheme, combining nonsingular terminal sliding mode and active disturbance rejection control (NTSM-ADRC) to address actuator failure and external disturbances during the automatic carrier landing process of a carrier-based aircraft using direct lift control (DLC). First, the carrier-based aircraft model, the carrier air-wake model, and the actuator fault model were established. Second, the NTSM-ADRC controller is designed, The unmodeled dynamics of the system, the air-wake disturbance, and the fault term are treated as total disturbances and estimated accurately by extended state observer (ESO). To improve the response characteristics of the controller, the nonlinear error feedback control law is designed by combining the NTSMC. The Lyapunov function is constructed to prove the stability of the closed-loop system. The controller is applied to the aircraft DLC channel, attitude auxiliary channel, and approach power compensation system. The DLC improves the performance of fixed-wing aircraft by directly generating high lift through the flaps to change the aircraft trajectory. Finally, the method is tested by introducing various types of actuator failures. Simulation results demonstrate that the designed longitudinal fault-tolerant carrier landing system exhibits strong robustness and fault tolerance, thereby improving the accuracy of aircraft landing trajectory tracking.