In this thesis the development of an algorithm for autonomous landing of aircraft is presented. First, a mathematical model for the motion of a point mass with six degrees of freedom is derived, along with its linearization about a reference trajectory. Based on these nonlinear equations of motion a flight simulation is designed, that also takes major sensor and actuator nonlinearities, such as limited range of operation, temperature dependency, effects of digitalization and noise into account. It serves as an environment for the development and testing of the proposed algorithm. A more thorough investigation into the influence of measurement noise on the achievable guidance accuracy is undertaken, as well as into the utilization of a Kalman filter for the mitigation of its effects.
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