Active disturbance rejection control for heavy cargo airdrop operations

In view of the strong nonlinear and coupling characteristics of the airdrop operations, a novel control method is proposed based on the active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) for decoupling control strategy of the pitch angle and airspeed. The unknown disturbances, including aerodynamic uncertainty and nonlinear coupling effect between the aircraft and cargo dynamics, are estimated and compensated with the extended state observer (ESO). Meanwhile, the nonlinear law state error feedback (NLSEF) is adopted to restrain the compensation residual. Simulation and flight quality evaluation shows the satisfactory capacity and strong robustness of the proposed control method in guaranteeing the airdrop task and flight safety.