High Alpha Maneuvering with a Laterally Asymmetric Fighter Aircraft: A Backstepping Control Approach

Asymmetric release of payload or partial damage of wing shifts the center-of-gravity (c.g.) of a fighter aircraft to new positions resulting in a highly coupled and nonlinear asymmetric dynamics. Since controlling the aircraft becomes much more challenging when it tries to perform some high alpha maneuver with such lateral asymmetry, implementation of nonlinear control becomes mandatory for the safety of the aircraft. In the present paper, the highly coupled asymmetric dynamics is first converted to the strict feedback form and thereafter a backstepping control is designed to autonomously execute the high alpha cobra maneuver under significant lateral c.g. shift. The simulation results show the maneuver performance under lateral asymmetry to be almost the same as that without any asymmetry.