Vector field guided auto-landing control of airship with wind disturbance

This paper proposes a vector field guided auto-landing control of an airship with a wind disturbance, whose motion is described in a vertical plane. Whereas hovering and vertical landing abilities are advantages of the airship, there is little research on the auto-landing mechanism. Unlike the previous airship control algorithms which compensate the disturbances using linear and nonlinear control laws such as backstepping control methods, the proposed auto-landing control algorithm is simpler than the backstepping controllers and covers the wind disturbances with unknown bound. To this end, the vector field based guidance law achieving the control objectives and adaptive-robust dynamic control law realizing the desired course are proposed. The stability analysis and simulation results of the proposed auto-landing control law are included to demonstrate the practical applicability of the proposed method.