Coordinated guidance and control for multiple parafoil system landing

TL;DR

This work addresses the problem of coordinating multiple unpowered parafoils to achieve collision-free, precise landings under wind disturbances. It develops a decoupled guidance framework combining NLP sensitivity-based landing-point allocation (solved via the Hungarian algorithm), collision-aware trajectory replanning, nonlinear model predictive control for trajectory tracking, and moving-horizon correction to adapt a simplified kinematic model to actual dynamics. The approach reduces online computational burden by solving decoupled subproblems in parallel and updating models with a moving horizon, while ensuring safety margins and terminal accuracy. Simulation results demonstrate fast landing-point assignment, effective collision avoidance, and online-capable guidance and control with favorable landing dispersion and timing metrics, indicating strong practical potential for massive supply delivery missions.

Abstract

Multiple parafoil landing is an enabling technology for massive supply delivery missions. However, it is still an open question to design a collision-free, computation-efficient guidance and control method for unpowered parafoils. To address this issue, this paper proposes a coordinated guidance and control method for multiple parafoil landing. First, the multiple parafoil landing process is formulated as a trajectory optimization problem. Then, the landing point allocation algorithm is designed to assign the landing point to each parafoil. In order to guarantee flight safety, the collision-free trajectory replanning algorithm is designed. On this basis, the nonlinear model predictive control algorithm is adapted to leverage the nonlinear dynamics model for trajectory tracking. Finally, the parafoil kinematic model is utilized to reduce the computational burden of trajectory calculation, and kinematic model is updated by the moving horizon correction algorithm to improve the trajectory accuracy. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and computational efficiency of the proposed coordinated guidance and control method for the multiple parafoil landing.

Figures (14)

• Figure 1: Reference frames of the parafoil system.
• Figure 2: Illustration of the proposed approach.
• Figure 3: Timeline of the proposed approach calculation.
• Figure 4: Illustration of initial positions and landing points.
• Figure 5: Wind disturbances on each parafoil.