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This paper develops a typology of service maneuvers achieved by manufacturing companies. This typology is based on two dimensions: service specificity (split into customer service, product services and service as a product) and organizational intensity (tactical, strategic or cultural).The paper reviews the benefits and costs associated with service maneuvers and discusses their interplay with the typology. A collaborative option is proposed as an original strategy for supporting the challenging process of implementing a service maneuver, and the costs of running this option are developed in the light of the typology.

The general reasons for considering a fresh approach to the calculation of air‐worthiness design tail loads and associated torques due to elevator‐induced pitching manoeuvres are discussed. Then follows a description of the manoeuvre itself, elevator actions to be assumed, and the proposed method of calculating the various response quantities. The analytical treatment of Czaykowski given to the unchecked manoeuvre is extended to cover the checked case in Appendix I, Part III and a comparison is made of the two types of manoeuvre. The application of the work to auto‐pilot feed‐back failure causing hunting of the elevator control is also dealt with. The effect of aircraft size, weight, e.g. position, forward speed and altitude on the various response quantities are discussed, with particular emphasis on the importance of the manoeuvre margin. To avoid possible confusion of terms the two types of elevator‐induced manoeuvre mentioned above and discussed in this paper are defined as follows:

By application of the analytical method to a wide range of current aircraft types an approximate form of the method is developed for the quick estimation of tail load maxima and associated torques during the checked manoeuvre and the same is also confirmed for the unchecked manoeuvre of Ref. (3). Numerical values of critical elevator actions to be associated with the airworthiness design case are considered and hence, from a comparison with the approximate method, the limitations of the present empirical approach given in British and American civil airworthiness regulations are brought to light.

The purpose of this paper is to study the application of the planetary aerogravity‐assist (AGA) technique to the interplanetary transfer mission with low‐thrust engine, and the design and optimization approach of low‐thrust AGA trajectory.

In the research, the transfer trajectory with planetary AGA maneuver is analyzed first, the maximum atmospheric turn angle and the matching condition for AGA trajectory is derived out, which is the significant principle for AGA trajectory design and studies. Then, a design and optimization approach for interplanetary low‐thrust trajectory with AGA maneuver is developed. The complicated design problem is transformed into a parameter optimization problem with multiple nonlinear constraints by using calculus of variations and the matching condition associated with AGA trajectory. Furthermore, since the optimization problem is very sensitive to the launch date and AGA maneuver parameters, three ordinal sub‐problems are reformulated to reduce the sensitivity. Finally, a direct/indirect hybrid approach is utilized to solve these sub‐problems.

The planetary AGA maneuver is feasible and effective in decreasing the propellant consumption and flight time for interplanetary low‐thrust mission and provides better performance than pure planetary gravity assist. Moreover, the proposed approach is effective to design and optimize the low‐thrust transfer mission with AGA maneuver.

In further research, some simple preliminary design approaches for interplanetary low‐thrust trajectory with AGA maneuver are required to developed, which can provide a good initial conjecture for a hybrid optimization algorithm.

The paper provides the matching condition for interplanetary AGA transfer trajectory by analyzing some characteristics of planetary AGA maneuver, and presents an effective approach to design and optimize interplanetary low‐thrust AGA trajectory.

Orbital maneuver of the spacecraft can cause large-amplitude vibration of its flexible solar array, which leads to large dynamic stress and a risk of structural failure and fatigue failure. This paper aims to provide a method to reduce such vibration.

Through controlling the rotation at the root of the solar array, a method of vibration reduction is proposed using zero-placement input shaping technique. Experimental research on a beam scale model of the solar array is performed to verify the effectiveness of the method. Simulation of a detailed example is carried out to investigate whether the method can be applied in engineering.

The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of such method. The simulation results indicate that, by adopting the presented method, the vibration induced by orbital maneuver can be diminished remarkably.

Studies on the robustness of the method are left for further work. Additionally, since only the first-order bending vibration of the flexible solar array is eliminated, further improvements are required such that the stated method can be applied to suppress multi-mode vibration.

An effective method is proposed for spacecraft designers planning to actively suppress the vibration of flexible solar array during the process of orbital maneuver.

This paper fulfils a source of theoretical and experimental studies for orbital maneuver system design and offers practical help for spacecraft designers.

One of the primary problems in the field of on‐orbit service and space conflict is related to the approach to the target. The development of guidance algorithms is one of the main research areas in this field. The objective of this paper is to address the guidance problem for autonomous proximity manoeuvres of a chase‐spacecraft approaching a target spacecraft.

The process of autonomous proximity is divided into three phases: proximity manoeuvre, fly‐around manoeuvre, and final approach. The characteristics of the three phases are analyzed. Considering the time factor of autonomous proximity, different orbits for the three phases are planned. Different guidance algorithms, which are based on multi‐pulse manoeuvres, are then devised.

This paper proposes three phases of autonomous proximity and then designs a guidance method, which hinges on a multi‐pulse algorithm and different orbits for the three phases; in addition, a method of impulse selection is devised.

An easy methodology for the analysis and design of autonomous proximity manoeuvres is proposed, which could also be considered for other space applications such as formation flying deployment and reconfiguration.

Based on this guidance method, the manoeuvre‐flight period of the chase‐spacecraft can be set in accordance with the mission requirements; the constraints on fuel mass and manoeuvre time are both considered and satisfied. Consequently, this proposed guidance method can effectively deal with the problem of proximity approach to a target spacecraft.

Target tracking systems are generally computationally intensive and require expensive and power‐hungry visual sensors. On the other hand, the existing target tracking control approaches fail to track the target swiftly and accurately when the mobile robot moves in the diversified manoeuvre modes. The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel target tracking control method with a low cost embedded vision system to achieve high accuracy and speediness of target tracking control, regardless of the type of manoeuvre modes.

The pan/tilt angle differences are transformed from the tracking error between the image centre and the coordinates of the target centroid returned by the CMUcam3; the corresponding pan/tilt angle variation rates are calculated based on the manoeuvre control. All of them are fed to the controller. Then the controller generates appropriate control signals to fit the changing speed of target centroid and compensate for the tracking error. The experiments are designed in a way that the CMUcam3 keeps the target centre coincident with the image centre when the mobile robot moves in the diversified manoeuvre modes.

In spite of the type of manoeuvre modes, the controller responds to the tracking error instantly and actuates the pan/tilt with suitable position and speed commands, and the target centroid remains in the bounding box during the entire movement.

The proposed target tracking control takes the correlation between the robot manoeuvre modes and the target tracking control into account, and particularly suits for the target tracking tasks in planetary exploration, surveillance and military applications.

The following chapter describes a paradigm shift in military thinking and its practical application for business strategists. It describes the concept of maneuver theory. Originally designed as a war‐fighting doctrine based on the principles of speed, surprise, and economy of effort; the authors argue that maneuver theory has the inherent capability to provide the same successes for business strategists as it has for military strategists. Discusses similarities between military and business campaigns and then describes the difference between maneuver warfare versus conventional warfare. The techniques and lessons from the maneuver paradigm are then translated into the business context using a number of examples. Argues that the ongoing contests of wills, deployment of resources, and competitive behaviors seen on the business landscape are comparable with military campaigns. Argues that the application of maneuver techniques and principles will produce swift, economical, innovative, strategic, and sustainable business victories in an environment that is increasingly turbulent and unpredictable. Provides step‐by‐step guidelines for implementing a competitive philosophy that generates organizational excitement, commitment, energy, and innovation. Maneuver theory has spawned much discussion and debate, it has been misinterpreted, it has been touted as the solution to all military problems, and it has been vilified as a “bag of military Doritos – tasty and fun to munch but not very nutritious” (Bolger, 1993). This chapter describes how to operationalize a war‐fighting philosophy that until now has remained elusive in its application.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have wide applications in surveillance and reconnaissance without risking human life. Due to unbalanced payload distribution or in-flight deployment, UAVs may undergo lateral center of gravity (c.g.) variations resulting in an asymmetric dynamic having significant longitudinal and lateral/directional coupling and hence more pronounced nonlinearity. Therefore, automatic control of UAVs becomes extremely difficult when it is forced to perform maneuvers under such imbalance in lateral mass distribution. The purpose of this paper is to design adaptive nonlinear control so that the UAV can perform some useful lateral/directional maneuver under lateral c.g. uncertainty.

First the nominal lateral/directional dynamics of a fixed-wing UAV is framed into strict feedback form and then the block backstepping approach is used to design the controller to execute horizontal turn and aileron roll maneuvers under no lateral c.g. variation. Thereafter, an adaptive block backstepping controller is designed to adapt to uncertainty in lateral c.g. position considering an approximate model of the asymmetric dynamics. The proposed adaptive scheme is validated against the same two maneuvers as considered for the nominal case.

First it is shown that the lateral/directional dynamics of a UAV can be converted to a block strict feedback form for executing some lateral/directional maneuvers. However, it was observed that the maneuver performance suffers significant performance degradation under lateral c.g. variations. To mitigate this issue, a simple and computationally inexpensive adaptive block backstepping scheme is proposed and validated. The adaptation law is further proved to be able to asymptotically estimate the actual c.g. location of the UAV.

The proposed control scheme allows the UAV to automatically adapt to lateral c.g. variations so that the intended maneuvers are performed without any noticeable loss in maneuver performance.

There are very few works available in the literature that address nonlinear control designs for executing specific lateral/directional maneuvers and, moreover, they consider symmetric UAVs or aircraft only. This paper addresses the practical problem of autonomous maneuvering for UAVs with unbalanced lateral mass distribution leading to shift of c.g. out of its plane of symmetry.

This paper aims to present the idea of an automatic control system dedicated to small manned and unmanned aircraft performing manoeuvres other than those necessary to perform a so-called standard flight. The character of these manoeuvres and the range of aircraft flight parameter changes restrict application of standard control algorithms. In many cases, they also limit the possibility to acquire complete information about aircraft flight parameters. This paper analyses an alternative solution that can be applied in such cases. The loop manoeuvre, an element of aerobatic flight, was selected as a working example.

This paper used theoretical discussion and breakdowns to create basics for designing structures of control algorithms. A simplified analytical approach was then applied to tune regulators. Research results were verified in a series of computer-based software-in-the-loop rig test computer simulations.

The structure of the control system enabling aerobatic flight was found and the method for tuning regulators was also created.

The findings could be a foundation for autopilots working in non-conventional flight scenarios and automatic aircraft recovery systems.

This paper presents the author’s original approach to aircraft automated control where high precision control is not the priority and flight parameters cannot be precisely measured or determined.