Time-varying sliding mode controller for over-actuated systems with constrained and uncertain actuators in flight control applications

One solution to the problem of distributing the control action among redundant actuators with uncertain dynamics is employing an adaptive control allocator. This paper proposes a sliding mode controller which exploits a time-varying sliding surface to complement adaptive control allocation in the presence of actuator saturation. The proposed approach does not require error augmentation for tracking desired references, which diminishes the computational burden. Aerodata Model in Research Environment, which is an over-actuated aircraft model, is adopted to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed controller in simulation studies.