Nonlinear Control Design

AbstractAn aircraft is intrinsically a nonlinear system. Therefore, if linear controllers are to be used in the aircraft flight control system, several linear controllers have to be designed and then gain-scheduled over the operating regime of the aircraft. However, recent nonlinear control techniques have made it possible to deal directly with the known nonlinearities of the aircraft dynamics, which yields a unique controller suitable for a wide range of operating conditions. This chapter describes the technique known as NDI and presents the architecture and the design procedure of the controllers used in the aircraft autopilot.KeywordsFlight ControlAIAA JournalCommand SignalFeedforward ControllerAIAA GuidanceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.