Trajectory tracking for a PVTOL aircraft: a comparative analysis

The PVTOL aircraft model has a nonminimum phase characteristic so that conventional input-output linearization techniques will perform very poorly when it comes to output tracking as it will render the unstable internal dynamics unobservable. This paper is an investigation of approximate output tracking methods in the context of aircraft dynamics. The methods considered for comparison are: approximate linearization techniques which ignore the coupling between the rolling moment and the lateral acceleration of the aircraft, the use of flat outputs as state tracker and digital techniques. The simulation results shows the effectiveness of all the presented approaches