Semi-active landing gear can provide good performance of both landing impact and taxi situation, and has the ability for adapt-ing to various ground conditions and operational conditions. A kind of Nonlinear Model Predictive Control algorithm (NMPC) for semi-active landing gears is developed in this paper. The NMPC algorithm uses Genetic Algorithm (GA) as the optimization tech-nique and chooses damping performance of landing gear at touch down to be the optimization object. The valve’s rate and magnitude limitations are also considered in the controller’s design. A simulation model is built for the semi-active landing gear’s damping process at touchdown. Drop tests are carried out on an experimental passive landing gear systerm to validate the parameters of the simulation model. The result of numerical simulation shows that the isolation of impact load at touchdown can be significantly improved compared to other control algorithms. The strongly nonlinear dynamics of semi-active landing gear coupled with control valve’s rate and magnitude limitations are handled well with the proposed controller.
