An investigation of a high-speed ground manoeuvre under optimal control

This paper studies the behaviour of a nonlinear aircraft model under optimal control for aircraft ground manoeuvres, specifically for high-speed runway exits. The aircraft’s behavior on the ground is captured by a fully parameterized 6-DOF nonlinear model. A pre-defined cost function is minimized using a Generalized Optimal Control (GOC) algorithm, in order to obtain an optimal control sequence for a particular manoeuvre-cost function combination. In this paper, three scenarios are investigated for a 45-degree high-speed runway exit: the first control sequence minimizes the distance between the aircraft’s CG and the runway centreline; the second maximizes the distance travelled by the aircraft during the 20 seconds of simulation time; the third minimizes tire wear. For each scenario, the GOC algorithm provides the best possible control inputs: such results provide a benchmark against which the effectiveness of future real-time controllers may be judged.