Block Backstepping, NDI and Related Cascade Designs for Efficient Development of Nonlinear Flight Control Laws

A common feature of many aircraft configurations is that the actuation mainly effects the moments, and thereby the angular accelerations, whereas the desired normal acceleration is achieved by adjusting the location of the velocity vector in body coordinates. Thus, the main desired effects of the actuators appear after one integration, and if the actuators have dynamics the effect of the primary control variable occurs after more than one integration. This inherent cascade structure of many aircraft control problems is exploited in e.g. nonlinear dynamic inversion via time scale separation (NDI-TSS) to yield a powerful nonlinear design method. In the present work we present a family of multivariable (three axis) nonlinear cascade design techniques for flight control law design which includes block backstepping and NDI-TSS as special cases and we show that this family can offer a large design flexibility and excellent performance as well as short design cycles. We show stability for the family of techniques and illustrate the theory using simulations based on the ADMIRE model which is a realistic nonlinear model of an agile fighter with delta-canard configuration.