Modular flight control reconfiguration design and simulation

• Published in: Control engineering practice 2011-06, Vol.19 (6), p.540-554
• Main Authors: Lombaerts, T.J.J., Chu, Q.P., Mulder, J.A., Joosten, D.A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptative systems; Adaptive control; Aircraft; Applied sciences; Computer science; control theory; systems; Control system synthesis; Control theory. Systems; Damage; Exact sciences and technology; Failure; Fault tolerance; Faults; Identification; Inspection; Mathematical models; Modelling and identification; Modular; Nondestructive testing; Real time; Simulator
• ISSN: 0967-0661; 1873-6939
• DOI: 10.1016/j.conengprac.2010.12.008

This paper describes a reconfiguring flight control algorithm for damaged aircraft based upon a modular approach. This approach combines real time physical model identification with adaptive nonlinear dynamic inversion (NDI). The sensitivity of NDI to modeling errors is eliminated here by making use of a real time identified model of the aircraft. In failure situations, the damaged aircraft model is identified by the two step method and this updated model is supplied to the model-based adaptive NDI routine, which reconfigures for the fault in real time. Reconfiguration test results for damaged aircraft models indicate good fault handling capabilities of this fault tolerant control set-up, for component as well as structural faults. ► Adaptive control techniques are capable to recover damaged aircraft. ► The two step method identifies damaged aircraft in real time. ► The manual controller improves handling qualities and pilot workload. ► The automatic controller shows good performance. ► Practical tests with real aircraft and test pilots are recommended.