MODELLING AND SIMULATION OF AIRCRAFT

NOSE WHEEL STEERING SYSTEM

PAVAN M S 1, JAIDEV VYAS J 2, BALAMURUGAN G 3,
PAVAN.M.S 1

JAIDEV VYAS J 2

BALAMURUGAN G 3

M Tech Student, NCET

Bangalore, India.

Scientist, CSIR-NAL
Bangalore, India.

Principal Scientist, CSIR-NAL

Bangalore, India.

mspavan.66@gmail.com

jaidev.vyas@nal.res.in

gbala@nal.res.in

AbstractThe nose wheel steering system for aircraft-onground maneuvering is simulated on MATLAB-SIMULINK
platform to estimate the effort (Torque) required for steering.
Estimation of steering torque is essential for steering actuation
system sizing. Aircraft steering model includes Nose Landing
gear (NLG) model, Aircraft Dynamics model, and Tyre model.
Steering Actuator is sized based on the steering torque and 3000
psi (or) 210 Bar as system pressure constraint. Flow rate
requirement is also estimated for the given steer rate. Generation
of flow and pressure data for steering system are essential in
sizing of centralized hydraulic pumps which support flight
control surface actuation systems, thrust reversal systems,
Landing gear retraction, Braking etc.

mounted on rudder pedals measures the given input. In this

mode, the authority for steering is limited, (up to 6-degrees on
either sides).
Rudder Pedal Mode
Rudder pedal mode is used at high speeds during takeoff
and landing where the limited angle of steering is required.
Steering orders from rudder pedals are sent to the steering
control unit via input potentiometers. Rudder pedals turn the
nose wheel up to 6-degrees either sides of the centre. Rudder
pedal mode is used for high-speed taxi as well.

Keywords Aircraft, Steering system, Nose Landing Gear

(NLG), Simulation, Aircraft-on-ground dynamics.

I. INTRODUCTION
A. Aircraft Nose-Wheel Steering System
In a typical steer-by-wire system, pilot mechanical inputs
are transmitted to the steer-control unit through the
potentiometers in the form of electrical signals. Based on these
signals the steer-control unit regulates the hydraulic valves
located in the steering manifold. These valves receive
continuous supply of hydraulic power from the centralized
hydraulic systems. The valves regulate the hydraulic flow and
pressure to the NLG actuator in such a way that the actual
steer angle profile is same as the commanded. Steer-control
unit will be in closed loop with feedback potentiometer which
senses the NLG angular deflection at any given instant of time.
Typical aircraft nose wheel steering system architecture is
shown in Figure 1.

Operation And Control

The directional control of the aircraft can be achieved in

two modes: One is the regular/ normal steering mode and the
other is free castor mode. Free castor mode is active when the
regular steering system is either in OFF state or has
temporarily failed. The input for steering is either from rudder
pedals or from the hand wheels. At low speeds of the aircraft,
the pilot selects the input mode to the hand wheel through a
switch provided the on hand wheel. In this mode, the pilot will
have full authority for steering (up to 70-degrees on either
sides. At higher speeds during landing and takeoff, the pilot
gives input through the rudder pedals and the potentiometers

Fig-1:Typical Aircraft Nose-Wheel Steering system schematic

Free Castor Mode

The steering control unit continuously monitors the nose
wheel steering system. Any detected faults are annunciated on
the EICAS(Engine integrated cockpit alert system)in the form

of visual messages. If a failure is detecteed by the steering

control unit, the system reverts to free castor mode wherein the
pilot maintains ground directional controol through rudder
control or
differential thrust or diffferential braking
respectively.
B. Simulation
In this paper, an attempt is made to forrmulate simplified
mathematical models for aircraft-on-groundd maneuvering and
steering torque estimation. The steering-toqque along with the
steer-angle is required for sizing the hyydraulic actuation
system.
M
II. AIRCRAFT BI-CYCLE MODEL
A two degree-of-freedom "bicycle" moddel is often used to
study the lateral behaviour of aircraft on the ground[4], as
shown in Figure 2. This greatly simplifies the aircraft model
and allows to study the effects of operational parameters on
the side slipping and yawing motions, which
w
are in turn
helpful in determining the attitude and paath of the aircraft.
Such parameters consist of inertia propertiees, tire properties,
centre of gravity location along the wheel base, location of
nose and main landing gear, etc.
In the bicycle model, the major assumptiions are a flat road
condition, constant longitudinal velocity andd non-existence of
rolling and pitching motions. These assum
mptions restrict the
movement of aircraft only to the horizontal plane.
p

A. Tire-ground friction
At low speeds, the aircraftt lateral behaviour mainly relies
upon the sideslip of the nose and main wheels (the angle
between the wheel axis and the direction of motion).The local
sideslip angles NW and MW caan be modelled as [6]:
NW = f - [
MW = - [

LNW
V

LMW
V

(3)

(4)

where f is the steer angle. The Lateral forces acting on the

wheels are functions of cornerring stiffness (CS) and tyre slip
angle [5] and represented as
FyNW = CSNW NW

(5)

FyMW = CSMW MW

(6)

The equations from 1-6 arre mathematically rearranged to

arrive at a solution matrix for linear and angular accelerations
as shown below:
V
=
r
MA/C

CSNW CSMW

LNW CSNW LMW CSMW

MA/C V

LNW CSNW LMW CSMW

LNW CSNW LMW CSMW

MA/C

CSNW

LNW
N CSNW

V
r

(7)

The state space represeentation of above system of

equations is
X = AX
A + Bu
Y = CX
X + Du
is the state matrix, Y =

Where, X =
Fig-2: Aircraft Bicycle model repressentation

In the above Figure, MA/C represents the mass of the

aircraft concentrated about CG, LNW represents the distance of
NLG axle from CG, LMW represents the distaance of MLG axle
from CG, f represents steering angle , Izz thhe yaw moment of
inertia about CG, NW represents tyre side slip
s angles at NLG
and MW represents tyre side slip anglees at MLG. The
difference between the direction of the veloocity vector of the
wheel and the direction of the wheel is the measure of tyre
side slip angle[4].
With reference to Figure 2; taking the forcee balance in lateral
direction and moment balance about CG of thhe aircraft leads to
MA/C [V + Vx r] = FyNW +FyMW

(1)

Izz r = [LNW FyNW - LMW FyMW]

(2)

In the above equation, r represents the yaw rate or angular

velocity about z-axis.

(8)
is the output

matrix and u = is the input (steer-angle).

The coefficients of the state maatrix are given as,
CSFW

A=-

CSRW

LFW CSFW
I

LRW CSRW

M
LFW CSFW

LFW CSFW
I

C=

LRW CSRW

MV

V
CSFW

B=

LFW CSFW

MV

1
0

0
1

LRW CSRW
V

D=

0
0

The above state space modeel is solved using Simulink tool.

AR MODEL
III. NOSE LANDING GEA
Nose Landing gear (NLG)) is used to compute the torque
required to steer the aircraft against
a
the resistive and inertial
forces. The Figure 3 shows thhe NLG with the actuators used
for steering the aircraft.

As shown in Figure 4, thhe hydraulic sub-system block

estimates the pressure differenttial (Pl) and flow-rate (Q) across
the actuator using the followingg relationships;
P

(13)

AL

V dP1
d
Q = A * L1 f + t
dt 4e dt

(14)

In equations (11) & (13), actuator

a
piston viscous damping
force and piston inertial force are
a neglected.
Table-1: Parameters of
o aircraft used for simulation

Parameter

Fig-3: Nose Landing Gear Moddel

With reference to the above figure, thee torque balance

equation of NLG can be written as

B k
T
(9)
T
T
T
(10)
(11)
Ta = A*Pl*L1
The tyre resistive torque is formulated as [6]
T
2 SASNW NW 2 e CSNW NW
(12)
Where k is load stiffness coefficient, Je is thee equivalent inertia
of the NLG, Be is the equivalent viscous daamping coefficient,
Ta is the torque applied by the hydraulic system through rack
and pinion mechanism, Pl is the load pressuree difference across
the steer actuator, A is steer actuator area, L1 is pinion radius
and Tr is the resistive torque generated by
b the tire-ground
interface acting against the steering operationn.

Symbol

Value

Units

Mass of the
Aircraft

MA/C

17690

Kg

Moment of inertia
of the aircraft
about C.G

Izz

189740

Kg-m^2

Distance of Nose
wheel from
Aircraft CG

LNW

3.81

Distance of Main
wheel from centre
of gravity

LMW

0.58

Longitudinal
Velocity of the
aircraft

Vx

m/s

Cornering
stiffness of Nose
wheel tyre

CSNW

33015

N/rad

Cornering
stiffness of Main
wheel tyre

CSMW

48287

N/rad

Effective bulk
modulus of the
hydraulic fluid

8*10^8

N/m^2

Total volume of
actuator chamber

Vt

0.0014

m^3

Piston face area of

steering actuator

0.0053

m^2

Reference radius
of steering pinion

L1

0.1

Equivalent
damping constant
of the NLG

Be

10

N-m/rad/s

Load stiffness
coefficient

100000

N m/rad

Equivalent inertia
of NLG

Je

1.0

Kg-m^2

Caster length

0.1

38000

N/rad

Self Aligning
Stiffness

SASNW

IV. RESULTS
R
Fig-4: Block diagram of Aircraft Steering System
m simulation model

From the Figures 5 and 6, it can be inferred that the

predicted steer angle profile iss same as the desired steer angle

profile. The 2 DOF aircraft bicycle model is used to estimate

the lateral velocity (Vy) and yaw rate (r) which are shown in
Figures 7 and 8.

The parameters such as tyre slip angle and the lateral forces
acting on the tyre are estimated based on the lateral velocity
(Vy) and yaw rate(r).

Fig-5: The desired steering angle Vs Time.

Fig-9: Nose wheel tyre slip angle (NW) Vs time

Fig-6: Predicted steering angle Vs Time.

Fig-10: Lateral force acting on Nose wheel tyre ( FyNW) Vs time

The nose wheel tire resistive torque (Tr ) is calculated based on

equation (12), using the predicted slip angle NW.

Fig-7: Variation of Lateral velocity (Vy), with time

Fig-11: Resistive torque(Tr) Vs time.

The hydraulic actuator pressure differential (P1) and

volumetric flow rate (Q) are calculated based on the estimated
applied torque (Ta) an yaw rate (r).

Fig-8 :Yaw rate (r) Vs time

[4] J.M. Biannic, A. Marcos, M. Jeanneau, C. Roos," Nonlinear simplified

LFT modelling of an aircraft on ground",Proceedings of the IEEE Conference
on Control Applications, Munich, Germany, 2006, pp. 22132218.
[5] Hans B. Pacejka.,'' Tyre and Vehicle Dynamics'', ButterworthHeinemann publications, Second edition, 2006.
[6] Pouly, G., Huynh, T.-H., Lauffenburger, J.-P., and Basset, M.," State
feedback fuzzy adaptive control for active shimmy damping", European
Journal of Control .95, 134
[7] Yang Rongrong, Fu Yongling, Ma Jungong and Zhang Ling,"A
Compound Control Scheme for Aircraft Nose Wheel Steering Load System",
Proceeding of the IEEE International Conference on Information and
Automation Hailar, China, July 2014.
Fig-12: Hydraulic system pressure (Pl) Vs time.

Fig-13: Hydraulic system flow rate (Q) Vs time.

V. CONCLUSIONS

The two degrees of freedom(2 DOF) bicycle model is

used to calculate the aircraft lateral and angular velocities
during steering. Nose Landing Gear model includes
inertia, damping, applied torque and tyre resistive forces.
The tyre model calculates the resistive torque acting at the
tyre-ground interface. The tyre model is applicable for the
cases where the tyre slip angle () is in the range of 50.
PID Controller is tuned to match the predicted steering
profile with desired profile. The output of the controller
corresponds to the torque to be applied by the steering
system to attain the desired steering profile. Based on the
torque estimated, steering actuator is sized with 3000 psi
(210 bar) as system pressure constraint. The simplified
methodology followed in the paper is helpful in
preliminary sizing of the steering system based on the
aircraft requirements.
REFERENCES
[1] Zhang Ming, Nie Hong, Wei Xiao-hui, Oian Xiaomei,
Zhou
Enzhi,(2009),"Modelling and simulation of aircraft antiskid braking and
steering using co-simulation method", COMPEL - The international journal
for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering, Vol.
28 Iss: 6, pp.1471-1488.
[2] Chen Bihua, Jiao Zongxia,*, Shuzhi Sam Ge," Aircraft-on-ground
path following control by dynamical adaptive backstepping", Chinese Journal
of Aeronautics, 2013, 26(3): 668675.
[3] Clment Roos a,, Jean-Marc Biannic a, Sophie Tarbouriechb,
Christophe Prieur b, Matthieu Jeanneau ''On-ground aircraft control design
using a parameter-varying anti-windup approach''. Aerospace Science and
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