High Alpha Application of Nonlinear Adaptive Control

Abstract

This paper presents a nonlinear adaptive cop.trol law methodology with application to a highly maneuverable high performance aircraft, in particular, a modified F-18. The adaptive controller presented in this paper is based on nonlinear prediction models, and is constructed to minimize the given cost function with respect to the control input at each step. In the paper, the reference trajectory is an intermediate step that allows the system to follows the command trajectory while meeting a variety of design criteria. This paper shows that nonlmear adaptive control can be utilized effectively to control high performance aircraft such as the F-18 aircraft for rapid maneuvers with large changes in angle of attack.