Achieving air superiority is a key tenet of U.S. fighting doctrine. To meet this requirement, flight packages of Uninhabited Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) have recently been proposed for future conflicts. One operations concept calls for UCAVs to possess significant onboard intelligence that enables real-time decision-making without continuous human intervention. In this case, although the vehicl...

Multi-objective design of robust flight control systems. A multi–objective evolutionary algorithm is used in the framework of H∞ control theory to find the controller gains that minimize a weighted combination of the infinite–norm of the sensitivity function (for disturbance attenuation requirements) and complementary sensitivity function (for robust stability requirements). After considering a...

We present an optical sensing methodology to estimate the fatigue damage state of structures made of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP), by measuring variations on the surface roughness. Variable amplitude loads (VAL), which represent realistic loads during aeronautical missions of fighter aircraft (FALSTAFF) have been applied to coupons until failure. Stiffness degradation and surface roug...

The thesis deals with the guidance and control of a fighter aircraft in air combat. From the modeling perspective, the thesis formulates realistic air combat optimization problems and games in which inherent uncertainties of air combat are taken into account. From the solution perspective, the thesis develops on-line methods for the near-optimal feedback solution of the constructed models. The ...

Of all modern aircraft, helicopters are the least survivable due to their low altitude and relatively low speed flight profiles compared with jet aircraft, and their high acoustic and radar signatures. These are inherent limitations of rotary wing aircraft, which cannot be easily or affordably designed out. Formal survivability analysis is centred on two components: the first being susceptibili...

Dimensional Discrepancies Overrolling of Debris Corrosion Other Fatigue Absrrucr-The development of an in-line, full flow oil debris sensor for aircraft engine condition assessment is described. First used on the F22 fighter, this sensor is the only “ all-metals” debris detector in production. The sensor is based on an inductive measurement technique which enables the system to detect, count an...

This paper reports the results of correlation between demodulated amplitude and frequency variations from the AM-FM speech model and the heart rate of a fighter aircraft flight controller. It has been found that the peak frequencies in the spectrum of the amplitude envelope of the model follow F0 regardless of the center frequency of analysis. This tracking of F0 gives a qualitative estimate of...

The French-Australian Collaboration on Emerging Technologies (FACET) investigated appropriate means of delivering situation-awareness into the cockpit of fighter aircraft under simulated operational conditions. Increasing use of audio has been suggested as a means to reduce visual workload, to enhance situation awareness, and mitigate the manual and cognitive demands of HOTAS and existing comma...

The potential for significant neck injuries exists in today's high performance fighter aircraft. The G-loads required to produce injury need not be excessive, nor is experience level necessarily protective. Eight cervical spine injury cases, due to or aggravated by +Gz in F-15 and F-16 aircrew members are reviewed. These include two compression fractures (C5/C7), three left HNP's (C5-6/C6-7), o...

The Air Operations Division (AOD) of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) has developed a range of simulation tools whose capabilities include air combat modelling. The Air Operations Simulation Centre (AOSC) provides a facility for Human-in-the-Loop (HiL) simulation, and the BattleModel provides intelligent Computer Generated Forces (CGFs). The AOSC and the BattleModel have b...