Navigation is a vital part of flying where crew keeps track of the position of a moving aircraft relative to the Earth -- namely its position, velocity and attitude at any time. In inertial navigation, a vehicles path is modeled kinematically rather than dynamically, as the full relationship of forces acting on the body to its motion is quite complex. Since the early days, the concept of automatic flight control systems has evolved from mechanical control systems to highly advanced automatic fly-by-wire flight control systems which can be seen nowadays in military jets and civil airliners. In early periods of aviation history the tools for this were maps, compass, airspeed, indicator, clock, and astronavigation. There are now ground-based navigation systems with area coverage, specialised systems for landing procedures, radio beacons, distance measuring equipment, radar and transponders, inertial navigation systems, and satellite navigation receivers. Equally important as these technical aids are air traffic control, maps, and procedures. Today the art of air navigation involves a working knowledge of all these systems. This book offer up-to-date coverage on the topics of navigation and guidance, covering general introduction which examines the importance of systems theory to understand guidance and navigational applications over a wide range of aerospace vehicles including aircraft, spacecraft and drones, both remotely controlled and operating as autonomous vehicles. Even today, many research efforts are made for the further development of these flight control systems in various aspects. Recent new developments in this field focus on a wealth of different aspects. The book focuses on selected topics contributed by worldwide authors and field specialists, such as inertial navigation, control of unmanned aircraft and helicopters, trajectory control of an unmanned space re-entry vehicle, aeroservoelastic control, adaptive flight control, and fault tolerant flight control. The book is an important addition to the topic of applied modern control systems, covering the efforts toward greater autonomy for robotic systems in the near future.
