Stochastic optimal control of flexible aircraft taxiing at constant or variable velocity

Active control landing gears are used to alleviate vibration during aircraft taxiing. A nonlinear stochastic dynamics model is established, considering the aircraft body pitch movement and elastic vibration excited by the random runway. The equivalent linearization method is adopted to ensure the model linearity near the balance point, and the Gaussian random process of the runway is generated from the Gaussian white noise using a shape filter. Based on the stochastic optimal control theory, the LQG controller is designed along with weighted quadratic performance index for a better ride comfort, shock absorption, road holding and least energy expenditure. The algebraic Riccati and Lyapunov equations are solved to obtain stationary response while taxiing aircraft at a constant velocity and the differential Riccati and Lyapunov equations are solved to obtain the nonstationary response while taxiing aircraft at a variable velocity. The aircraft dynamic responses are obtained through the runway random process modeled by Monte Carlo method. Simulation results show that active control landing gear can give a better ride comfort, shock absorption and road holding performance no matter whether taxiing is at constant or variable velocity.