Since the angled deck is only tens miles width, the task of landing an aircraft on an aircraft carrier requires precise control, especially lateral loop. For this problem, this paper focuses on researching the aircraft automatic landing lateral control. In lateral control, the most crucial parts are controlling the off center distance and keeping the desired landing attitude. So firstly a nonlinear kinetic model of aircraft landing in lateral directional axis is established, and then transformed into error states. The controller is designed for an angle of attack of 11.7 deg and an airspeed of 40m/s, the equilibrium point. Receding horizon control methodology is employed to solve the aircraft lateral control problem. This controller is solved in MATLAB, and sent to the 3D simulation environment by network communication, to control the aircraft landing lateral loop. The simulation environment is programmed based on VC++ software. The simulation results show that receding horizon control method can achieve trajectory tracking and attitude tracking of nonlinear aircraft landing system.
