Abstract: A Kalman filter based T-S fuzzy controller is proposed to address the tracking control problem of the morphing aircraft. Considering the unmeasurable states of the aircraft, we introduce the inertial navigation data as auxiliary information, and adopt the Kalman filter algorithm to fuse the flight control information and the inertial navigation information to achieve state estimation. Since the aerodynamic characteristics of the morphing aircraft vary considerably with different deformation structures, to facilitate the controller design, we use a small disturbance linearization method to obtain the local linear models of the aircraft at different equilibrium points, and design the local controllers with the state feedback method. The local linear models and local controllers are then aggregated into a continuous and smooth global T-S fuzzy model and a T-S fuzzy controller respectively using the fuzzy sets and fuzzy rules. After the synthesis of the Kalman filter and T-S fuzzy controller, the whole Kalman filter based T-S fuzzy controller is finally developed. The simulation results show that the proposed controller can accurately estimate the states and ensure good tracing performance during the morphing process of the aircraft.

Key words: morphing aircraft, T-S fuzzy control, Kalman filter, inertial navigation systems, information fusion