Flight Control Law Design and Analysis for Mars Airplane in Crosswind

Abstract

With the increasing development of Mars detection, Mars airplane as a mesoscale detection means, can be a good complement to fill the ability blank between the track detector and the surface detector. The atmospheric activity on Mars' surface is very intense. However, the current flight control law design for Mars airplane does not consider the effect of crosswind. In this paper, the nonlinear model of Mars airplane, in presence of crosswind, is introduced. Then, the methodology for designing the longitude and lateral controllers is developed. Flight control system in crosswind is designed using the following strategy: when there is a crosswind, control system manipulates the fuselage to turn a yaw angle towards the crosswind direction, and to counter the equivalent sideslip angle caused by the crosswind to ensure that the ground speed direction remains unchanged. The PID control law is used to eliminate errors, and the corresponding angular velocity is introduced to increase damping. Simulation results are obtained using SIM ULINK, the results indicate that the control laws proposed in this paper for Mars airplane flying in crosswind are valid and robust.