Parameter Varying Control of a High Performance Aircraft

The dynamic response characteristics of modern aircraft vary substantially with ight conditions. These changes require scheduling of the ight control system with variables such as dynamic pressure and Mach number. This scheduling can be accomplished easily for simple controllers but is much more diicult for complex controllers which result from the use of most modern control design techniques. On the other hand these complex controllers can yield signiicant performance improvements when compared with simple controllers. Recently Linear Parameter Varying (LPV) techniques have been developed which provide a natural method for scheduling for Hinf based controllers. In this paper LPV techniques are combined with mu synthesis methods to develop a self-scheduled longitudinal controller for a high performance aircraft. The ability of this controller to achieve speciied handling qualities over a wide range of ight conditions is demonstrated by non-linear simulations.