Research on path tracking control of electric Towbarless aircraft taxiing system in crosswind condition

An aerodynamic finite element model of King 350 aircraft is established, and the crosswind load of the aircraft under different wind characteristics is analyzed. A lateral dynamic model of the electric towbarless towing vehicle (TLTV) – aircraft system with TLTV rear wheel differential steering and front universal follower wheel is derived to investigate the effects of the crosswind on the aircraft towing trajectory, under different towing velocities and crosswind direction/strength. A Model predictive control (MPC) strategy is presented for the distributed TLTV rear-wheel vehicle speed control to compensate the disturbance of the crosswind on the aircraft traction. The proposed aircraft towing tracking method is simulated in Simulink-Adams environment. The result shows that the proposed control method has a good speed and path control performance.