Home > Published Issues > 2019 > Volume 8, No. 6, November 2019 >

Robust Control of an Input-redundant Aircraft against Atmospheric Disturbances and Actuator Faults

Maksim Trifonov 1, Karl Frederik Prochazka 2, and Saleh Krüger 2
1. Department of System Analysis and Control, Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University), Moscow, Russia
2. Institute of Flight Systems and Automatic Control, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

Abstract—There are several applications for modern robust control theory in which closed-loop performance in the face of model uncertainties and measurement noise is of uttermost importance. Especially for safety-critical areas like aerospace systems uncertainties due to unmodeled dynamics or neglected flexible modes as well as atmospheric disturbances have to be carefully considered during the controller design procedure. Another important aspect in flight control system (FCS) design is fault-tolerance. As many modern aircrafts are inherently over-actuated, the control objective could still be achieved when one or even more actuators fail. It is thus of practical interest to extend the robust controller’s performance analysis to also incorporate such scenarios. This paper presents the design of a robust longitudinal controller for the input-redundant ADMIRE (Aero-Data Model in Research Environment) aircraft benchmark model. After the analysis of the closed-loop system’s performance in the simultaneous presence of aerodynamic uncertainties, sensor noise and turbulence acting on the aircraft, the additional occurrence of actuator faults has been simulated to determine the FCS’s robust stability margins. 

Index Terms—H∞ control, robust analysis, aerodynamic uncertainty, atmospheric turbulence

Cite: Maksim Trifonov, Karl Frederik Prochazka, and Saleh Krüger, "Robust Control of an Input-redundant Aircraft against Atmospheric Disturbances and Actuator Faults" International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 8, No. 6, pp. 905-910, November 2019. DOI: 10.18178/ijmerr.8.6.905-910