Receding horizon control of the Caltech ducted fan: a control Lyapunov function approach

Deals with the application of receding horizon methods to the simplified model of a flight control experiment developed at Cal Tech. The dynamics of the system are representative of a vertical take off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, such as a Harrier around hover. The adopted control methodology is a hybrid of receding horizon techniques and control Lyapunov function (CLF) based ideas. First a CLF is found, and then, by using the CLF as the terminal cost in the receding horizon optimization, stability is guaranteed. It is shown that if the horizon length is long enough, a simple choice of CLF, i.e., the one obtained from Jacobian linearization of the dynamics at hover, will achieve a good performance. However, if due to computational costs, longer time horizons are not possible, stability can be guaranteed by applying the CLF obtained using quasi-LPV methods, as a terminal cost. Several numerical simulations for different time horizons are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the discussed methods