2-D path following control for unmanned aerial vehicles

This paper presents a new method for UAV to follow the 2-D defined path. This method consists of the out guidance loop and the inner control loop. The guidance law relies on the idea of tracking the virtual target that travels along the path. The speed of the virtual target is explicitly specified and related to the motion of the real aircraft by a fictitious mechanical link. The main advantage of this method is that it considers the aircraft maneuver ability and guarantees the asymptotical convergence performance to the path. The flight control law is designed based on nonlinear dynamic inversion. The numerical simulation result illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.