Altitude Control of Powered Parafoil Using Fractional Sliding-Mode Backstepping Control Combined with Extended State Observer

This paper presents a method of altitude control of the powered parafoil with uncertainties and disturbances based on sliding-mode backstepping control combined with a linear extended state observer (LESO). First, the dynamics of a powered parafoil is derived in the longitudinal plane using its inclination angle. The problem of altitude control is converted to the issue of angle control. Next, uncertainties and disturbances are considered as a total disturbance. An LESO is used to estimate the total disturbance and form an inner-loop compensation. Backstepping control is employed to regulate the inclination angle to follow the desired value. A fractional sliding surface is introduced to the backstepping control. This ensures the transient performance of altitude control of the powered parafoil. Then, stability analysis shows that the observation errors of the LESO are bounded and the control system is uniformly ultimately bounded. Simulation results of an 8 degree-of-freedom powered parafoil illustrate that the LESO can effectively estimate the states of the system and demonstrate the validity and the superiority of the presented method.

Automated summary

This paper presents a method of altitude control for the powered parafoil using sliding-mode backstepping control and LESO. Uncertainties and disturbances are considered as total disturbance, with a fractional sliding surface introduced to ensure transient performance. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.