Tensor product model-based control of morphing aircraft in transition process

Morphing aircraft can change their shapes in order to acquire enhanced flight performance. In the transition process of shape change, the aerodynamics and dynamics of aircraft would change dramatically, and the aircraft is a time-varying and highly nonlinear system. This article presents a tensor product (TP) modeling method and a TP model-based control design method for a kind of morphing aircraft in transition process. First, a new linear parameter varying (LPV) modeling method is proposed to model the longitudinal dynamics of a kind of morphing aircraft undergoing large shape change. This LPV modeling method does not need trim map and numerical calculation. Then, the LPV model is transformed into a TP type polytopic model. Furthermore, the TP model is augmented by a slow reference dynamics of flight speed. Based on the augmented TP model, a TP model-based LPV controller is designed by using parallel-distributed-compensation (PDC) control techniques and regional pole placement techniques. Finally, simulations are performed on a variable-sweep morphing aircraft undergoing large-scale changes in both shape and flight speed, and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.