Computational optimal launching control for balloon-borne solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles in near-space

The near-space solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle has broad prospects in application owing to its high altitude long-endurance performance. Launching solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle into the near-space with balloon-borne approach has advantages over the traditional sliding take-off methods, in that it is able to quickly and safely cross the turbulent zone. In this article, we investigate the control technology of balloon-borne launching for the solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles. First, the motion of the launching process is divided into longitudinal and lateral-directional motion, with the longitudinal process and its equation addressed in detail. We then analyze the flight state and restriction conditions that the unmanned aerial vehicle should meet during the process. Second, the target variables and constraints are selected to formulate the optimization problem. The control variable parameterization method is applied to find the optimal pitch angle in the releasing-and-pulling process. More explicitly, a three-channel attitude stabilization controller is designed, in which the longitudinal channel takes the optimal pitch angle as the pitch instruction, the transverse channel carries out the zero control of the inclination angle, and the course channel takes the stabilization control, respectively. Numerical simulation results show that our proposed control design is capable of accelerating the solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles from the vertical state and pulling them up to the horizontal cruising flight state, with the flight angle of attack, the maximum speed, and the maximum axial acceleration in the pulling process all within the designed range.