Flight test of a digital controller used in a helicopter autoland system

Abstract

This paper describes the flight test evaluation of an advanced digital helicopter flight control system. The controller was designed using an optimal control design procedure for a fully coupled lateral and longitudinal vehicle model. Explicit integrals of the guidance error were included to produce a Type 1 characteristic. Gain scheduling was used to account for changes in the vehicle dynamics. The digital controller was exercised by combining it with state estimators, a trajectory generator and a closed-loop guidance algorithm to form a helicopter autoland system. A CH-47 tandem rotor helicopter was equipped with sensors, on-board digital flight computers and electro-hydraulic actuators. The system was exercised by automatically flying straight-in descending decelerating trajectories typical of VFR manual landing approaches. A description of the test-ground facilities, the flight hardware and software, and the velocity and position tracking performance is included.