A formation flight control system previously developed at the Air Force Institute of Technology is modified to allow an aircraft equipped with standard Mach-hold, altitude-hold, and heading-hold autopilots to orbit a stationary reference point on the earth at a desired range, velocity, and altitude. The associated nonlinear kinematics are properly linearized and a controller is designed using conventional linear techniques. The importance of a disturbance rejection capability of the controller is demonstrated through comparisons of linearized model predictions with nonlinear simulations. The design tradeoffs between performance and robustness are emphasized.
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