Backstepping Control for Asymmetric Fighter Aircraft Executing the High Alpha Herbst Maneuver

Asymmetric dynamics of a combat aircraft becomes highly coupled when center-of-gravity (c.g.) of an aircraft shifts to new position because of either partial wing damage or asymmetric release of store. It becomes difficult for an aircraft to execute high angle maneuvering under asymmetric center- of-gravity shift as nonlinearity and dynamics get more complex, under such situation implementation of nonlinear control becomes inevitable. In the present study, dynamics is first converted into strict feedback form and then backstepping control scheme is implemented to execute high alpha herbst maneuver under significant lateral center-of- gravity shift. The simulation result obtained by the present study advocates the maneuver performance under lateral asymmetry to be almost similar as that without any asymmetry.