Abstract: Equations of motion of the aircraft arresting process taking the elasticity of the arresting cable into consideration were derived with the assumption that the arresting force was completely provided by the tension of the arresting cable. In order to make the original second order ordinary differential equation (ODE) system controllable, a higher order ODE was applied. After the deceleration curves were optimized using Gauss pseudospectral method (GPM), a close loop control method was employed in tracking the optimal trajectory by feedback linearization. The results of the simulation demonstrate the influence of cable elasticity and the effectiveness of exact linearization as an addon procedure of nonlinear optimization.

Key words: aircraft arresting, nonlinear optimization, Gauss pseudospectral method (GPM), feedback, arresting cable