Background Emergency landing procedures during landing gear malfunction necessitate quick thinking and precise execution to ensure the safety of passengers and crew. A common strategy involves executing a \\\"wheels-up\\\" landing. This paper examines a unique emergency landing scenario where an aircraft lands on a mobile platform moving along the runway. This method requires coordination and control between the aircraft and the platform to match their velocities during the landing process. Methods A Boeing 747 was performed as a 3-D point mass simulation in MATLAB. The mobile platform was modeled as a first-order system having throttle as an input and the mobile platform velocity as an output. The methods Proportional integral derivative controller (PID) and sliding mode control (SMC) were utilized to achieve the velocity synchronization amid the aircraft and the platform. For examining the stability of the mobile platform model, Lyapunov’s Theorem for stability was employed. and sliding mode control (SMC) were utilized to achieve the velocity synchronization amid the aircraft and the platform. For examining the stability of the mobile platform model, Lyapunov’s Theorem for stability was employed. Results Simulation results show that both PID and SMC controllers successfully controlled the platform velocity to match the aircraft velocity during the emergency landing. However, the SMC controller demonstrated superior performance with faster convergence to the desired velocity reference compared to the PID controller. Conclusions The analysis demonstrated that the most suitable control strategy for the mobile platform velocity in relation to aircraft velocity is SMC during emergency landings. The inherent robustness of SMC to disturbances and uncertainties, coupled with its rapid convergence capabilities, makes it well-suited for this application.

Keywords