Adaptive VTOL landing scheduling on moving marine platforms using predictive planning and Tau-based descent refinement
Ocean Engineering, cilt.368, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 368
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.oceaneng.2026.128335
- Dergi Adı: Ocean Engineering
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Applied Science & Technology Source, Compendex, Environment Index, Geobase, ICONDA Bibliographic, INSPEC, The International Construction Database (ICONDA), Academic Search Ultimate (EBSCO), Engineering Source (EBSCO)
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Adaptive control, Deck motion prediction, Moving marine platforms, Ship deck landing, Touchdown scheduling, VTOL landing
- Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
This paper presents an adaptive landing-scheduling framework for Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft operating on moving marine platforms. The framework combines a Predictive Landing Scheduler (PLS), online Lyapunov-based estimation of aircraft vertical-response bandwidth, and Tau-based terminal descent refinement. Deck-motion prediction and candidate touchdown timing are continuously updated as new measurements become available, providing a rolling-horizon scheduling mechanism during approach. The method is evaluated across aircraft vertical bandwidths, approach velocities, and sea-state-driven vertical deck motions. Results show that predictive scheduling is most beneficial for low-bandwidth aircraft, whereas standalone Tau guidance becomes increasingly competitive as aircraft bandwidth increases. The integrated PLS-Tau strategy combines predictive touchdown selection with terminal descent refinement and maintains strong performance across the tested conditions. To assess sensitivity to the heave-only baseline assumption, an additional benchmark based on published heave, pitch, and roll ship motions is used to construct local vertical landing-pad motion. Rotational contributions increase landing difficulty, particularly for low-bandwidth aircraft, while the principal comparative trends are retained. Software-in-the-Loop simulations in X-Plane further demonstrate operation with nonlinear aircraft dynamics and a moving marine platform. These results indicate that continuously updated predictive scheduling, aircraft-response estimation, and terminal Tau refinement provide a modular approach to VTOL landing under the vertical-motion scenarios examined.