Development of a Lateral-Directional Flight Control System for a New Transport Aircraft

Abstract

ठThe paper presents the development of a Flight Control System for the lateral dynamics of a transport aircraft to be used for simulation analys is. For a manufacturer-independent evaluation of the handling characteristics of a future transport aircraft, it is inevitable to replicate its flight control system as close as possible. While some data on the basic design characteristics of the flight control system of the real aircraft could be obtained, almo st no information was available concerning its internal implementation. Thus, own control laws have been implemented. As both the fidelity of the flight simulation model as well as the underlying d ata are changing quite rapidly, robust routines for automated gain and filter computation have been developed, accounting for handling qualities, stability and robustness requirements which can be easily stated in definition files. Much attention i s drawn to the high level of automation in gain desig n and the flexibility in specifying the characteristics of the closed-loop system as those features on the one hand allow the system to be use d during all stages of the project and on the other h and provide the capability to analyze the impact of different design requirements on the overall charac teristics of the system. For achieving appropriate dynamics characteristics, eigenstructure assignment is used. The system is augmented by limitations as well as compensations.