Fighter aircraft lateral directional axes full envelope control law design

1994 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 893-924 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW SPARKS ◽  
JAMES BUFFINGTON ◽  
SIVA BANDA
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Chong-sup Kim ◽  
Taebeom Jin ◽  
Gi-oak Koh ◽  
Byoung soo Kim

The highly maneuverable fighter aircraft is exposed to unexpected pitch motion such as over-Nz (normal acceleration) and Nz-drop characteristics in transonic and supersonic flight conditions with moderate angle of attack. These characteristics not only degrade flying qualities by destabilizing the aircraft but also threaten flight safety by increasing the structural load. This article proposes an additional augmentation control in the incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion structure, which feeds back the error of pitch angular acceleration to mitigate unexpected pitch motion in slow down turn maneuver. We evaluate the stability, flying qualities, and robustness of the proposed control system by performing the frequency-domain linear analysis and the time-domain numerical simulations based on the mathematical model of advanced trainer aircraft. As a result of the evaluation, the additional augmentation control further improves flying qualities and deceleration performance of the aircraft by decreasing over-Nz and Nz-drop characteristics in high-Nz maneuvering in the transonic flight condition as well as ensuring the stability and robustness of the control system against the major uncertainty factors of the aircraft system compared to the existing transonic pitching moment compensation (TPMC) control in which the predefined scheduling for Nz feedback is used.


2006 ◽  
Vol 110 (1104) ◽  
pp. 85-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. S. Richardson ◽  
M. H. Lowenberg

Abstract A methodology referred to as the continuation design framework is developed for application to nonlinear flight control problems. This forms the basis of a systematic approach to control system design for aircraft operating in highly nonlinear regions of the flight envelope. The essence of the continuation design framework is to combine bifurcation analysis with modern control methods such as eigenstructure assignment. Theoretical and practical issues of the approach are discussed with particular reference to the problems posed by agile fighter aircraft. The proposed methodology is applied to a fifth order hypothetical aircraft model and is shown to provide a visible, flexible and logical approach to nonlinear aircraft control law design.


2006 ◽  
Vol 110 (1107) ◽  
pp. 315-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Chen ◽  
V. Wickramasinghe ◽  
D. Zimcik

AbstractTwin-tail fighter aircraft may experience intense buffet loads when flying at high angles of attack. One such aircraft is the F/A-18 where the broadband buffet loads primarily excite the first bending and torsional modes of the vertical fin, resulting in significant vibration and dynamic stresses on the vertical tail structure. This buffet phenomenon reduces the fatigue life of the aircraft structure while decreasing mission availability.An international technical co-operation program was initiated to develop a novel hybrid actuation system to actively alleviate the buffet response of a full-scale F/A-18 vertical fin. A hydraulic rudder actuator was used to control the bending mode of the vertical fin using rudder inertia forces. Multiple macro fiber composite actuators were distributed optimally to provide maximum induced strain control authority for the torsional mode. In order to develop an effective control law, a system identification approach was conducted to obtain a state-space model of the vertical fin using open-loop test data. An LQG control law was selected to minimise the dynamic response of the vertical fin at critical locations. The effectiveness of the control law was verified through extensive simulation prior to closed-loop experiments. The LQG control law demonstrated high robustness in all excitation load conditions; both bending and torsional vibration modes of the vertical tail were suppressed effectively and simultaneously. The dynamic stress and acceleration response at critical locations were also reduced significantly. A closed-loop experiment was conducted on a full-scale F/A-18 empennage using the IFOSTP test rig, and the experimental results verified the effectiveness of the control law development methodology used for the full-scale hybrid buffet load system for the F/A-18 aircraft. In addition, the ground vibration test demonstrated that the hybrid actuation system is a feasible solution to alleviate the vertical tail buffet loads in high performance fighter aircraft.


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