A Mixed H₂/H∞ Jump Markovian Design Approach for the Automatic Flight Control System of an Unmanned Airship

This paper presents a design methodology for the heading control system of an unmanned airship. Since the aircraft motion depends both on deterministic command signals required for tracking a desired path and on random exogenous inputs modelling the wind influence, a mixed H2/H-infinity type method have been chosen for the design of the automatic flight control. Moreover, due to the fact that the vehicle dynamics at straight and level flight is different from the model at level turning flight, a stochastic Markovian model with two states is adopted to simulate these two situations. A design methodology for a state-feedback controller with Markov jumps is presented. The theoretical developments are illustrated by numerical comparative results indicating the benefits of proposed optimal design approach.