Event-Triggered Robust Tracking Control of a Networked Commercial Aircraft System During Ascent Under Communication Constraints

Abstract

This paper investigates the robust tracking control problem of a networked commercial aircraft system during the ascent phase under communication constraints. The aircraft dynamics and the controller are interconnected through a communication network, where efficient utilization of communication resources is critical for maintaining tracking performance. To address unknown external disturbances and model uncertainties, an adaptive sliding mode scheme is developed to estimate disturbance effects online without requiring prior knowledge of disturbance bounds. A backstepping-based robust control framework is then constructed to guarantee longitudinal tracking stability of the networked aircraft system. To reduce communication burden while preserving closed-loop performance, a switched event-triggered communication mechanism is proposed, where the triggering policy is autonomously adjusted according to the evolution of system stability. The proposed strategy establishes a tradeoff between tracking performance and network resource utilization by significantly reducing transmission events. Rigorous analysis establishes the boundedness of all closed-loop signals, guarantees tracking convergence, and excludes Zeno behavior. The effectiveness of the proposed network-aware control framework is demonstrated through simulations on a Boeing 747 aircraft model during the ascent phase.