Relative motion modeling and control for autonomus UAV carrier landing

In this paper, the relative motion model and control strategy for autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) carrier landing are addressed. Firstly, a coupled six degrees of freedom(6-DOF) non-linear relative motion model is established from (6-DOF) UAV and carrier models. Then the (6-DOF) relative motion model is simplified to the four degree of freedom (4-DOF) model to facilitate the control design, because of the underactuated characteristic of two vehicles. Secondly, the feedback linearization control law is proposed to control the UAV towards the aircraft carrier with constant forward, vertical velocity and lateral position and yaw angle. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control system.