Robust force and displacement control of an active landing gear for vibration reduction at touchdown and during taxiing

In this paper, a new approach is proposed to control the dynamic response of a landing gear system subjected to runway force, both on heavy landing conditions and at the taxiing process. The mathematical model of the system is used in a way that covers nonlinear dynamics characteristics of landing gear and nonlinear/nonaffine property of the external actuator. The operation of the landing gear system and its components are described briefly. The desired control system includes two different interior loops for displacement and force control. The inner loop determines the actuator force and the outer loop performs the displacement control. A lumped uncertainty is considered in both displacement and force control loops that represent uncertainties including parametric errors, measurement noises, unmodeled dynamics, disturbance due to runway excitation, and other disturbances. The direct method of Lyapunov is utilized for asymptotic stability analysis of the robust nonlinear control system (RNCS). This system is simulated in MATLAB software and the performance of the proposed controller is analyzed exactly. Besides, the results are compared with a passive system and conventional PID control. The comparison indicates that RNCS works better and more precisely. This method can reduce vibrations at touchdown and taxiing and effectively overcome uncertainty and provide well aircraft handling by decreasing the changes in tire force.