Adaptive non-singular terminal sliding mode control for structural damaged aircraft

Structural damage brings strong coupling effects and increases the difficulty of flight control. Aiming at this problem, a nonlinear model of aircraft is introduced firstly, and then an adaptive non-singular terminal sliding mode control method is presented. The approach can ensure the system to reach the sliding surface and converge to equilibrium point in finite time from any initial state without the singularity. In addition, the proposed adaptive non-singular terminal sliding mode controller can real-time estimate the uncertainties and external disturbances. The adaptive law is derived in the Lyapunov framework, which can guarantee the asymptotical stability of the closed loop system. Finally, simulations with Generic Transport Model (GTM) are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed approach.