Cable Assisted Rendezvous for Aircraft With Surface Locations

Abstract

By systematically altering the in-plane flight path and velocity of an aircraft and the rate at which the cable is deployed, the tip of a cable being towed behind an aircraft is shown to rendezvous with a ground-based surface location in minimum time, with minimum control effort required. This is achieved through optimal control, formulated as a nonlinear programming problem using the Legendre-pseudospectral method. This method is fast, efficient and accurate. Results depicting a typical payload transportation operation are presented and discussed, along with directions for future research. The robustness of the method to disturbances is also explored.