Stability boundary analysis of highly flexible aircraft with control saturation and structural flexibility

Abstract

In this work, a method has been presented to analyze the influence of control saturation and structural flexibility on the stable radius of highly flexible aircraft. A dynamic model of aircraft is constructed followed by the analysis of kinetic characteristics. In this paper, the closed-loop stability boundary of highly flexible aircraft with open-loop instability is studied. The amplitude limit and bandwidth limit of the control signal are considered in the closed-loop stability boundary calculation. Our analysis shows that the boundary is related to the left eigenvector corresponding to the unstable poles and the amplitude constraint of the control signals. Stability of the boundary of feedback control system further reduces the limitation of the bandwidth of actuators. Focused on the phugoid instability of highly flexible aircraft, computational formulation of the closed-loop stable boundary is achieved. The Monte Carlo analysis has been employed to validate the stable region, under the LQR controller. Both the theory and simulations have nice correlations with each other which verify the stability of the closed-loop system, restricted by the open-loop system, and the influence of control signal bandwidth constraints.