Higher order sliding mode based lateral guidance and control of finless airship

Abstract This paper addresses a non-unified super twisting sliding mode based guidance and control framework for the lateral path following of finless airship. Two loops strategy: outer guidance and inner control, is opted here. A nonlinear sliding surface based guidance law is designed that generates reference heading angle commands for the inner loop. The inner control loop that generates commands for propulsion arm actuators is designed using linear sliding mode control theory. Stability of the closed-loop control system is shown by employing the Lyapunov theory. The performance and robustness of the proposed framework is validated through nonlinear high fidelity simulation platform with actuators dynamics, sensor models including measurement noises, and external disturbances like wind/gust. The proposed framework is benchmarked against classical methods in the literature.