4-D Flight Trajectory Tracking: A Receding Horizon Approach Integrating Feedback Linearization and Scenario Optimization

This paper proposes a control strategy to steer an aircraft along a given reference 4-D trajectory. The aircraft has a nonlinear dynamics and is subject to constraints related to its maneuverability and to passengers comfort. Feedback linearization of the aircraft dynamics and convex relaxation of the constraints allow for a reformulation of the trajectory tracking problem that is suitable for a receding horizon implementation. Uncertainty is affecting the aircraft motion, mainly through wind, which is described as a Gaussian random field and approximated on-the-fly by a local autoregressive model. The adoption of a scenario-based minimization of the tracking error introduced by the stochastic wind disturbance preserves the problem convexity and allows obtaining a program that can be solved with limited computational effort. The wind model update jointly with the recomputation of the control action at each time step allow to account for the spatial variability of the random field and to obtain recursive feasibility of the receding horizon solution.