A fully tuned RACS for flight control system

Abstract

This paper presents the design of a roll attitude control system (RACS) based on bacterial foraging particle swarm optimised (BFPSO) proportional integral and derivative (PID) autopilot that controls the roll angle of an aircraft. To achieve the high degree of spiral stability desired in aircraft flight control system (AFCS) requires the use of RACS. The RACS uses feedback mechanism to maintain the roll attitude in presence of disturbances and responds rapidly to the commands from the pilot. Here a new algorithm is proposed which combines the advantages of both PSO and BFO to form a new algorithm called BFPSO. The parameters such as Kp, Ki and Kd of PID-based RACS controller are tuned by BFPSO algorithm to achieve the dynamic stability as required by the pilot while spinning an aircraft. Finally, it is found from simulation, proposed controller gives the best performance compared to PSOPID, BFOPID and RBFNC controller.