Adaptive and quasi-sliding control of shimmy in landing gears

TL;DR

This paper introduces two nonlinear control strategies to effectively suppress shimmy oscillations in aircraft landing gears, demonstrating their robustness against uncertainties through numerical validation.

Contribution

It presents novel adaptive and quasi-sliding control methods specifically designed for shimmy suppression in landing gears, addressing uncertainties and partial measurements.

Findings

Effective suppression of shimmy oscillations demonstrated

Control methods robust to uncertainties and partial measurements

Numerical validation confirms approach viability

Abstract

Shimmy is a dangerous phenomenon that occurs when aircraft's nose landing gears oscillate in a rapid and uncontrollable fashion. In this paper, we propose the use of two nonlinear control approaches (zero average control and model reference adaptive control based on minimal control synthesis) as simple yet effective strategies to suppress undesired oscillations, even in the presence of uncertainties and partial state measurements. Numerical results are presented to validate the proposed control approaches.