Design and Simulation of Flight Path Control Systems for CHARLIE Aircraft

Insight into the knowledge of Automatic Flight Control Systems gives an understanding of the basic problem of controlling the aircraft’s flight, and enhances its ability to assess the solutions to the problems which are generally proposed. There are a number of flight missions which require that an aircraft be made to follow, with great precision, some specially defined path. Whenever a conventional aircraft is to be controlled, pilot can command rates of rotation in any or all of three axes: pitch, roll and yaw. Path variables, such as heading and pressure altitude, need to be measured in the aircraft; in considering their control in a treatment of flight control. These approximations are linear as well as sufficient; such systems can be regarded as members of the class of flight path control systems, and has been treated intensively in this paper. This paper being firmly based upon time-domain methods, presents modern methods of control theory, particularly the use of state equations which is a natural and effective technique and harmonizes with the mathematical description of the aircraft dynamics that are most completely and conveniently expressed in terms of a state and an output equation. Also this paper relates to particular modes of an AFCS, being concerned with Flight path control systems which has been implemented for the reference aircraft CHARLIE (a very large, four-engine passenger jet aircraft) at different flight conditions. SIMULINK is used to implement Flight path control systems as they are important to form the outermost loop of an integrated AFCS.