Automatica, Vol.30, No. 10, pp.
1527-1540,1994
Pergamon 0005-1098(93)E0057-B
Robust Longitudinal Axis Flight Control for an
Aircraft with Thrust Vectoring*t
JAMES M. BUFFINGTON,:~ A N D R E W G. SPARKS$ and
SIVA S. BANDA$
A reduced-order H= controller is designed for full envelope flight control
of a thrust vectoring aircraft. Structured singular values and nonlinear
simulations are used to analyze the robustness of the control system.
Key Words--Robust flight control; thrust vectoring aircraft; reduced-order control; flying qualities;
H~ control.
Abstract--A full conventional envelope longitudinal axis
control design is presented for a fighter aircraft capable of
thrust vectoring. An inner-outer loop modular control
structure is used to provide good flying quantities in the
presence of highly structured uncertainty across a wide flight
envelope. Simple, low-order control laws are designed for a
version of an F-18 aircraft model augmented with thrust
vectoring nozzles. A minimal-order H~ design algorithm is
used to aid in the design of an inner loop equalization
controller. Structured singular value synthesis is used to
design outer loop implicit model-following controllers.
Different control laws are found for high and low dynamic
pressure conditions, and controller commands are blended
for a small region of dynamic pressure. Daisy-chaining is
used to blend elevator and thrust vectoring commands.
Structured singular values are used to analyze stability
robustness to structured parametric uncertainty, actuator and
sensor unmodeled dynamics, and structured uncertainty
corresponding to controller blending. A nonlinear simulation
is used to show that the aircraft performs well across the
flight envelope during outer loop controller blending and
thrust vectoring actuation.
INTRODUCTION
HISTORICALLY, THE TREND o f t h e flight control
industry has been to use well-established
single-loop classical techniques for control
system design due to the excellent performance
of these methods. The inherently simple control
structure and small amount of required com-
putation add to the appeal of classical methods.
However, robustness of controlled systems to
* Received 22 September 1992; revised 10 April 1993;
received in final form 1 August 1993. This paper was
not presented at any IFAC meeting. This paper was
recommended for publication in revised form by Editor
Y. Arkun. Corresponding author J. M. Burlington.
Tel. +1 513 255 8680; Fax +513 476 4000; E-mail
buff@falcon.flight.wpafb.af.mil.
t Contributed paper presented in the session Nonlinear
Control: Flight Applications, at the 1993 American Control
Conference, San Francisco, CA, 2-4 June 1993.
:~Aerospace Engineer, Control Analysis Section,
WL/FIGC Bldg 146, 2210 Eighth St. Ste 21, Wright-
Patterson AFB, OH 45433-7531, U.S.A.
AUTO 30:I0-B
ElsevierScienceLtd
Printed in Great Britain
structured and unstructured uncertainties is not
directly addressed using classical techniques.
The most natural approach for addressing
multiple structured uncertainties involves robust
multivariable control techniques.
In most flight control problems, initial control
gains obtained from multivariable design meth-
ods must be tuned to achieve performance
objectives. Control gain tuning is a laborious and
extremely expensive task and is further com-
pounded with high-order, complex control
systems. Typically, the aircraft design process is
iterative in that the physical configuration of the
aircraft changes numerous times throughout
aircraft development. Each time the configura-
tion changes, control law gains must be
'retuned' or redesigned altogether which can be
time consuming and expensive for complex
control structures. Therefore, simple low-order
flight control systems that can be readily
'retuned' or redesigned are necessary to
minimize the design cost. Simple control
structures will also ease implementation
difficulties, such as gain-scheduling, correspond-
ing to the use of high-order controllers. The
control law design approach presented in this
paper leads to low-order controllers that require
minimal tuning and implementation effort.
One implementation difficulty inherent in
multivariable controllers is commanding of
redundant control effectors. Canards, forebody
blowers, and thrust vectoring nozzles are
examples of redundant control effectors that
provide additional control power. However, the
addition of redundant control effectors presents
the problem of allocating commands between
effectors to obtain the desired response.
Generally, multivariable control methods gener-
ate actuator commands without considering the
1527
1528 ,I. M. BITFFINGTONet al.
possibility of redundant effectors "lighting' each
other, i.e. redundant effector commands of
opposite signs. This paper discusses the use of a
control selector within the controller to address
these issues.
The design of a fixed H~ controller for a
fighter aircraft flying a Herbst-type maneuver
with multiple control effectors is presented by
Chiang et al. (1990). One condition along the
maneuver trajectory is chosen as nominal and
several other conditions along the maneuver
trajectory represent uncertainty for which the
robust controller is designed. The control
structure consists of an outer performance loop
wrapped around an inner equalization loop that
reduces the relative errors between the nominal
aircraft model and the off-nominal models.
Therefore, one non-scheduled robust controller
is used by Chiang et al. (1990) to perform the
entire maneuver. Performance specifications are
addressed through frequency dependent weights
on various sensitivity functions.
Sparks and Banda (1992) considered the
Herbst-type maneuver used by Chiang et al.
(1990) and presented longitudinal and
lateral/directional axes designs at a single flight
condition along the maneuver. Structured
singular value or/x-synthesis was used to design
a controller formulated in an implicit model-
following framework allowing for direct in-
corporation of flying qualities specifications into
the design.
This paper is an extension of the work by
Sparks and Banda (1992) and Chiang et al. (1990)
in that a model-following framework is used in
an inner-outer loop control structure to provide
a full envelope capability for the aircraft. The
design goal is to obtain acceptable longitudinal
aircraft flying qualities, despite modeling uncer-
tainties, using conventional aerodynamic control
effectors and thrust vectoring for a wide flight
envelope. Flying qualities requirements obtained
from Military Standard (1990) specifications are
used to assess the quality of the aircraft response
to pilot inputs as sensed by the pilot. These
requirements are directly incorporated into the
design procedure to guarantee satisfactory flying
qualities.
In the following sections, the problem
addressed in this paper is defined, and a
description of the aircraft model is given. The
body of the paper begins with descriptions of the
controller structure and design. Subsections are
organized in the natural order of the design
process. These subsections are organized to
present background theory followed by applica-
tion of the theory. Flying qualities, robustness,
and nonlinear analyses of the control design are
then presented followed by a summary of
conclusions.
PROBLEM AND MODEL DESCRIPTION
This paper addresses robust longitudinal
stabilization for the full conventional flight
envelope of a fighter aircraft. The conventional
flight envelope is defined as the subsonic Mach
regime between sea level and 40,000 ft. Dynamic
pressure ranges from 50 lbs/ft 2 (psf) to 1000psf.
These defined ranges correspond to angles of
attack up to approximately 25 degrees (deg).
Figure 1 shows the conventional flight envelope
with design and analysis model flight conditions
indicated.
A high-fidelity nonlinear model of a modified
F-18 aircraft augmented with thrust vectoring
nozzles is used for nonlinear simulations and
linear model generation at trim conditions for
control design. Leading and trailing edge flaps
are scheduled with angle-of-attack to provide
optimum lift-to-drag ratio. The nonlinear
aircraft model has detailed aerodynamic, propul-
sion, actuator, and sensor F O R T R A N modules.
The extensive aerodynamic and propulsion
databases were obtained from well-documented
flight and wind tunnel testing and augmented
with thrust vectoring test data. The actuator
models include rate and position limits. The
sensors are modeled with infinitely fast
dynamics.
As alluded to above, the nonlinear model is
linearized at trim conditions to generate
state-space models for design. Table 1 lists the
design and analysis conditions shown in Fig. 1.
The linear models have ten state variables that
represent the aircraft dynamics within a small
region around the trim condition. For the flight
envelope of interest, the longitudinal and
lateral/directional dynamics are sufficiently de-
coupled to partition the dynamics into a
'FxlO~
45! x - design condition
o - analysis condition
4;
altitude 3
(It) 2.5
02 04 0.6 08 I 12
Mach Number
FIe;. 1. Flight envelope.
 Robust flight control 1529

TABLE 1. DESIGN AND ANALYSIS CONDITIONS Controller

I • outer I
Condition Mach Altitude (ft) # (psf) a (deg)
%"-~+ CterrorL ~ qcmd • ~E
D1 0.3 26,000 47.5 25.2
D2, A1 0.5 40,000 68.5 16.8 I I
D3 0.6 30,000 158.4 6.8 inner ]
D4, A2 0.4 6000 189.9 6.0 I •

D5, A3
D6, A4
0.7
0.8
14,000
12,000
426.4
603.0
2.6
1.9
L
D7 0.95 20,000 614.4 1.6
D8 0.8 10,000 652.0 1.7
D9 0.8 5000 789.1 1.5
D10 0.9 10,000 825.2 1.4 FIG. 2. Control structure.
D11 0.85 5000 890.8 1.4
D12, A5 0.9 5000 998.7 1.3

D ~ e s i g n condition A--analysis condition

fifth-order model for the longitudinal axis and a
fifth-order model for the lateral/directional axes.
This paper describes only the longitudinal
dynamics model described by the state
variables, angle-of-attack (a), pitch rate (q),
velocity (u), altitude (h), and pitch angle (0).
Since the pilot controls the trajectory states
(u, h, 0), they are eliminated from the linear
models thus resulting in two state short-period
longitudinal linear models of the following form:
o
Mq][q]+kM~E M~rv J I-6vrv J
(1)
where 6e is the elevator deflection, 6vrv is the
thrust vectoring nozzle deflection in the pitch
axis, Z,, Z~E and Z ~ v are z-direction force
derivatives, and Ms, Mq, M~E, and M ~ v are the
pitch moment derivatives. Short-period lon-
gitudinal linear models of this form are
generated at the design conditions indicated by
Table 1. Because the control law gains will be
scheduled with dynamic pressure, the design
conditions are chosen to cover a broad range of
dynamic pressure.
CONTROLLER STRUCTURE AND DESIGN
The longitudinal axis manual flight control
system generates elevator and pitch thrust vector
commands from angle-of-attack commands.
These control effector commands stabilize the
short-period aircraft dynamics across a wide
conventional flight envelope.
The structure of the longitudinal flight control
system is modular, where each control module is
designed for a specific purpose. Figure 2 shows
this modular control structure. There are three
control system modules: the nonlinear control
selector (T), the inner equalization controller
(Keq), and the outer performance controller
(Kper0. The controlled plant (G) is represented
by the remaining element of Fig. 2, and Mach
number and altitude dependency is indicated by
(M, h). The design and objective of each control
system component is described in detail in the
following subsections•
Control selector
The idea behind the control selector is to
introduce generalized controls in cases where
there are redundant control effectors (Chiang et
al., 1990). Generalized controls keep the
force-moment generation accounting decoupled
from the remaining control system (Shaw et al.,
1988). The control selector dictates how the
control effectors will generate the necessary
forces and moments commanded by the rest of
the control system. Consider the linear model
with realization G (Ac, Be, Co, 0) and actual
controls u,
2 = A c x + Bcu, (2)
and with generalized controls u*,
= AGX + B'U*. (3)
To preserve the state dynamics, equations (2)
and (3) must be equal or
B ' u * = Bc;u. (4)
Therefore, the mapping from the generalized
controls to the control effectors,
u = Tu*, (5)
becomes the control selector
r = B~B* (6)
where B~ is the pseudo-inverse of Ba. Note that
if Bo has full row rank, then B* is exactly
obtainable, and the realization of the control
selector and open loop plant is
(~-(Ao, B*, Co, 0), which is used as the design
model plant for the inner loop equalization
controller in the next section.
Since there are two independent control
effectors to control state equation (1), equation
 1530
(4) becomes
l Jk0~mdJ [Ms, Ms .... 6vrvJ"
Continuous commanding of thrust vectoring is
not feasible because of practical issues such as
heating limitations on the thrust vectoring
nozzles. The thrust vectoring will be used only to
augment the elevator effectiveness during satu-
ration. Therefore, only one command from
equation (7) is possible. Since the elevator and
pitch thrust vectoring nozzles are primarily pitch
moment effectors, pitch accelerator commands
are most appropriate:
0c,~d = [Mo~: Ma,.,v] 6m~v •
The actual control surface commands for the
longitudinal control system are elevator and
pitch thrust vector commands, and the general-
ized control is now just pitch acceleration
u = 8 ll* = gl~ma B* --
Implementation issues, such as blending of
thrust vectoring commands, are also addressed
within the control selector. A daisy-chain
method is used to generate thrust vector
commands. Thrust vectoring is used only when
the aerodynamic surfaces are not able to
generate the necessary forces and moments
required for commanded maneuvers. Nonlinear
elements, such as position and rate limits, are
required to implement the daisy-chain thus
making the control selector nonlinear. Figure 3
shows the structure of the nonlinear control
selector based upon equation (8). A limited
elevator command (8~mJ) is generated from a
pitch acceleration command (0~md) via the
inverse of the elevator control effectiveness
(M~2) and elevator rate and position limits. An
achievable pitch acceleration (O~,,~,) is com-
puted from the limited elevator command using
the elevator control effectiveness (M<). The
difference of the commanded and achievable
pitch acceleration is transformed to a pitch thrust
I %
FiG. 3. Nonlinear control selector.
J.M. B[:FFINGTONet al.
• outer
1 (7)
Inner
U = qcmd ~ . ~
Flo. 4. Inner equalization design model.
vector command ~-.'"PTV}l~' cm
~dusing the inverse of the
thrust vector control effectiveness (Ma,),v).
(8)
Minimal-order H~ inner equalization controller
A minimal-order H~ design algorithm de-
veloped by Yeh et al. (1992) considers the linear
time-invariant system in Fig. 4. The minimal-
order H~ design algorithm generates a controller
that stabilizes the closed loop system and bounds
the H~-norm of the transfer function from the
. (9) disturbance (Wl) to the controlled outputs (Zl, z2)
by 3'. The controller has the Luenberger
observer-based structure shown in Fig. 5 and has
dimension equal to the number of plant states
minus the number of plant measurements. The
controller state, x0, is an estimate of a linear
transformation of the plant state, Tx, where T is
the transformation matrix. The controller para-
meters are Kf, F, T, M, and N, and they must
satisfy the Luenberger constraints
TA - F T = K f C (10)
G- TB (11)
N T + M C = Kc, (12)
for any Kc such that A - BKc is Hurwitz.
According to Yeh et aL (1992), the robust
controller parameter Kc is given by
Kc = [H~H2] IBTpI (13)
with P1 -> 0 satisfying
PtA + A r p j + H~HI + (1 + a ) T - zP~G~G~P~
- PIB[HTH2] 1BTp~<--O, (14)
Fit;. 5. Minimal-order ff~ controller structure.
 Robust flight control
subject to the existence of a P2 -> 0 that satisfies
P2F + FTp2 + NTHTH2N
+(I+a-')y-2e2TG1GTTTe2<_0. (15)
The design parameters a, Kf, and F represent
the freedom available to the designer and are
chosen such that a is a positive real scalar, F is
any stable matrix, and Kf is completely arbitrary.
The design tuning parameter a is used to tighten
the disturbance to controlled output H~-norm
bound as described by Buffington et al. (1992).
An initial bound y is selected that allows the
existence of a positive semi-definite solution to
equation (14). The controller parameter Kc is
now computed using P1, and then the Luenber-
ger constraint equations (10)-(12) are solved.
Sylvester equation (10) is solved for T, and then
G is computed using equation (11). Parameters
N and M are computed using a variation of
equation (12):
[N M ] = Kc[1C]
-1.--- (16)
Note that the choice of Kt and F provide the
design freedom to obtain a T that insures the
existence of I T ] -~. If there exists a solution to
design equation (15), a series of y-reduction
iterations is performed on equation (14) to find
the smallest bound Ymin for which positive
semi-definite solutions P~ and P2 exist. If no
solution exists to equation (15), y is increased,
and the procedure is repeated.
The relative error of a given linear model (P)
and a nominal linear model (P0) is given by
A = (P - po)p~T1, (17)
where Po is a nonsingular reference transfer
function. Summarizing Safanov and Chiang's
robustness theorem (1988), an outer loop
stabilizing controller of P0 will stabilize P
provided the maximum singular value of the
relative error is less than unity across the
controller bandwidth.
The purpose of the inner loop equalization
controller is, as the name suggests, to equalize
the aircraft dynamics across the flight envelope,
between angle-of-attack response and com-
manded pitch acceleration as shown in Fig. 6. In
other words, the goal of the inner loop is to
reduce the variation of the aircraft dynamics
between operating conditions, thereby reducing
the modeling uncertainty between flight condi-
tion-dependent aircraft models. Successfully
reducing the modeling uncertainty provides a
greater possibility that one robust performance
controller will control the aircraft across all
1531
P
I q
• outer ~ • ~E ~ ~ a I
LI thl
a. C l o s e d i n n e r l o o p
• ou~r
q cmd
b, R e f e r e n c e model
FIG. 6. Inner loop equalization.
operating conditions. Therefore, an effective
inner loop controller must be designed to reduce
the relative error between P and Po as defined by
equation (17).
Since P is a function of flight condition, the
equalization module must be robust across the
flight envelope or scheduled against a slow-
varying flight condition-dependent parameter,
such as dynamic pressure, as suggested by
Shamma and Athans (1992). Because the aircraft
dynamics vary greatly across a wide envelope, it
is highly unlikely one robust controller can be
designed. Thus, the inner equalization controller
gains are scheduled across the flight envelope as
functions of dynamic pressure.
Figure 6 shows that P is a linear model of the
control selector (T), the open loop aircraft
dynamics (G), and the inner equalization
controller (Keq). From the previous section, the
realization of the combination of the control
selector and open loop aircraft dynamics is
(Ac, B*, Co, 0). If the performance weight has
the realization W (Aw, Bw, Cw, Dw), then the
parameters of the design model from Fig. 4
become
0 Aw J
(18)
G, = [ B*Dw]
Bw / HI=[C* 0],
and 142 is the control signal weighting used as a
design parameter. Since the control system will
eventually track angle-of-attack commands, the
performance output distribution matrix is
C* = [1 0]. (19)
With the performance weight augmented to the
open loop aircraft dynamics, the number of
design states becomes three, and the number of
inputs and outputs remains at one and two,
respectively. Therefore, the order of the
equalization controller is one (number of
1532 J . M . BtJFFIN(iTON et al.

s t a t e s - n u m b e r of measurements). Fhe perfor- 10o~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . t

mance and control signal weights used [or the ]

inner equalization design are

A w = - lO0 Bw-I Cw = 45,918
(20) 10~_~
Dw = 510.20 //2 = 0.035.
E
Since the purpose of the inner loop controller is -~(A)I
to equalize the dynamics across the flight
t
envelope, the performance weight, Wp, given by |02 t
equation (20), is chosen as the inverse of a
first-order fit to the open loop dynamics at the
highest dynamic pressure condition (D12) in 7
Table 1. The choice of the highest dynamic
10.2 lO-t 10o lOt 102
pressure dynamics prevents positive feedback
Frequency (rad/see)
from diminishing the fast dynamics at high
dynamic pressure conditions which will in- F I G . 8. C l o s e d inner loop relative errors.

evitably occur for other choices of Wp.

Controllers are designed for each condition in
Table 1, and some controller parameters are
scheduled with polynomial fits in dynamic
pressure. The resulting controller parameters;
with design parameter a = 1 and design weights
given by equation (20), are
F=-40 Kf=[l 1] T=[0
U = N(~t) M ' = [M,(~)
Only three control parameters require schedul-
ing with dynamic pressure (~). The elements of
N and M are fit using least-squares polynomial
curve-fits, linear in dynamic pressure:
N(~) = -0.312c7 + 461
Ml(Cl) = -0.058# + 50.5
M2(q) = -0.0064 + 8.11
The controller given by equations (21) and (22)
provides closely matched frequency responses of
the closed inner loop transfer function (P) from
• outer
qcmd to a across the flight envelope as
shown in Fig. 7.
To analyze the variation of aircraft dynamics
at different flight conditions, the relative error
defined by equation (17) is computed for a given
linear model (P) and a nominal linear model
(P0)- In order to evaluate the relative error
0.0247 0] between these equalized models, the closed
inner loop model at condition D7 (Mach = 0.95,
M2(~)]. (2l) alt = 20 kft) is arbitrarily chosen as the nominal
model (B3. Figure 8 shows the maximum
singular values of the model errors relative to B,
across the flight envelope at design conditions
given in Table 1. Since the closed inner loop
errors relative to condition D7 are less than
unity for all frequencies and across the flight
(22) envelope, P0 is used as the open outer loop
design plant for the performance controller.
ix-Synthesis outer p e r f o r m a n c e controller
The general output feedback H~ design
problem is to find a controller K ( s ) such that the
disturbance to controlled output transfer
function (~,,,) is bounded,
IIT:,. II~ < 7, (23)
for the system shown in Fig. 9. The design model

°I l (G) must satisfy certain assumptions given by

Doyle et al. (1989) to insure the existence of a
K ( s ) that bounds IIL~. II~.
The structured singular value 0 x) of a matrix
M • C "×" is defined as the inverse of the size of
the smallest perturbation, A e A=
diag(A1 . . . . . A ) , Ai e C ...... , that makes I -
AM singular, or

Ix(M) %* 1 (24)
min {~(A) :det (I - AM) = 0}'
104
10-2 104 100 101 102
Frequency (rad/sec) where M and A are shown in Fig. 10. Since ix
FIG. 7. Full envelope equalization. cannot generally be computed exactly, tight
 Robust flight control 1533

~ w
r- 0t 0~idnl Z

FIG. 9. H~ output feedback.

FIcJ. 11. Outer performance design model.

FIG. 10. M - A format.

,

I , outer I
bounds of the following form are computed: I qemd r" - "3 Cterr°rl
t_ _ _ .1Kperfr4- - - -1
m a x p ( Q M ) < - t z ( M ) <- inf d,(DMD-1), (25) t-_J
QEQ D~_D

where FIG. 12. Aircraft M - A format.

Q = { Q e_A:Q*Q=In×,,}
- (26)

D = {diag (dllm,× . . . . . . , d,I,,,.×,~°):dj E ~+}.
The details of structured singular values and
their bounds are given by Doyle (1982) and
Doyle et al. (1982).
Combination of general output feedback H~
design theory and structured singular value
analysis theory form a design technique known
as /x-synthesis, and the details are given by
Doyle (1985) and Balas et aL (1991). By sealing
the system with D shown in equation (25), the
bound (3') on IITzwll~ from equation (23) is
reduced. Using this idea, the D - K iteration
synthesis technique is defined by
Using this ideal model-following approach, the
outer performance controller design model is
developed in Fig. 11. P0 and IM are the design
plant and ideal model described previously, and
Wp and W~ are design weights.
With the augmentation of an uncertainty block
corresponding to performance specifications
(Ap), the overall uncertainty structure is given by
[6d 0I (29)
A= 0 Ap'
and the performance specification represented
by Wp is guaranteed in the presence of the
u n c e r t a i n t y A d if

Stabimiinl~gK(s){Oilseed l[-D(s)FIl(P, K ) _ O ( s ) - I H~},

sup {/ZA(M)} --< 1 (30)
eo

(27) according to Doyle (1982). Figure 12 shows the

where D(s) is a real-rational, stable, minimum
phase transfer function that approximates the D
over frequency since optimum D-scaling is
performed at each frequency. E(P, K) is the
lower linear fractional transformation (Doyle et
al., 1991) of the design plant P and stabilizing
controller K.
The purpose of the outer performance
controller is to generate a pitch acceleration
command from an angle-of-attack command
that produces a desired robust angle-of-attack
response from the aircraft. This problem is
formulated as an implicit model-following
problem, where the ideal model to be followed is
chosen to be a second-order filter based on
desired flying qualities
2
Ct'ideal
=
O-) i d e a l
2 •
O~cmd S 2 Jr- 2~idealC..OidealS q- ¢.OideaI
formulation of the aircraft longitudinal axis outer
loop design model of Fig. 11 into the standard
M-A format of Fig. 10 based upon the
uncertainty structure of equation (29). The
robust performance controller (Kperf) for P0 is
designed using /z-synthesis with the perfor-
mance and input uncertainty weights set as
follows
0.25s + 50 10s + 1000
Wp - Wa = - - - - (31)
s+5 s + 10000
The process of choosing these design weights is
somewhat empirical. The tracking of the ideal
angle-of-attack response is important at fre-
quencies most sensitive to the pilot (low
frequencies), whereas robustness to input uncer-
tainties is important at different frequencies
(28)
(high frequencies). Therefore, the performance
weight is chosen as a low-pass filter, and the
1534 J . M . B t l v v l x c ; r o N et al.

input uncertainty weight is chosen as a high-pass with respect to the uncertainty structure oi
filter. The selection of the poles, zeros, and gains equation (29) and Fig. 11, of the closed loop
of the filters is iterative. Initial filter values are system with full- and reduced-order controllers.
chosen, a controller is designed, and time It is seen that reduction of the full 13th-order
responses are examined. The filter values are controller to a fourth-order controller does not
tuned until satisfactory tracking occurs with destroy the original robustness. The final
minimal control effort. fourth-order low and high dynamic pressure
Unlike the responses in the lateral/directional controllers are
axes, the desired pitch response is not uniform 1.30 × 102s3 + 7.89 × 104s 2
across the flight envelope. The pilot would like
to feel a faster response at higher speeds. To + 6.06 × 105s + 4. 19 × 10~
account for the different performance require- Kperf(S) S4 + 1.25 × 103s 3 + 6.99 × 103s2
ments, two robust performance controllers are + 4 . 1 4 × 104s + 1.50X 103
designed using two ideal models based on (32)
equation (28): (1) a low dynamic pressure
controller using a slow ideal model (g~d~= 1.20 × 102s3 + 2.91 × 105s2
8, Wide,,l=3rad/s): and (2) a high dynamic hi
+ 3.15 × 106s + 2.38 × 107
pressure controller using a fast ideal model gPerf(S) - s 4 + 1.64 × 102s :~ + 9.76 × 103S 2 '
(~'id~,,, = 0.8, a)ia~, = 5 rad/s). Implementation of + 1.40 × 105s + 1.01 × 104
the two outer loop performance controllers is
discussed later in this section. Figure 14 schematically shows the combination
Structured singular value synthesis typically of controller commands generated from the high
generates controllers of an order much higher and low dynamic pressure controllers of
than the original plant because of the design equation (32). Implementation of the controllers
weights and the frequency-dependent scalings. is achieved through a simple linear blending
The additional state variables in the controllers parameter (6b) that generates a combination of
are a result of the design method. Therefore, controller commands for a region of dynamic
good performance is possible with a reduced- pressure. Figure 14 also shows the blending
order controller. Truncation of a minimal, parameter as a function of dynamic pressure.
balanced realization of the full-order controller The dynamic pressure blending region between
is a common method of controller reduction 170psf and 200psf and the piece-wise linear
(Glover, 1984). A balanced realization of the low function were chosen to maximize the use of the
and high dynamic pressure controllers reveals "fast" high dynamic pressure controller. Once
that the original 13th-order controllers are the high dynamic pressure controller caused an
feasibly reduced to fourth-order controllers. elevator rate saturation for a 5 deg angle-of-
Figure 13 shows the structured singular values, attack step input (-200psf), the low dynamic
1 I
. . . . . .m . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . / ~., . . . . . . . .
0[ Low ~Controller / \ i o9 High q Controller
0~ 0B ' '",
! {)7

06] 06

ij. 05'

°'i
03
\ 01

02 0]
full-order upper b o u n d ~ i
{)1 -- 4th-order upper bound " ~ o, - ~ - 4th:order upp;; bou
10l I{)i 10~ 101 1{)1 I~2 l0 I I{)o 10~ I0~
Frequency (rad/sec) Frequency (rad/sec)
Fl(,. 13. Closed loop system/z-bounds.

5b

% r r o r ~ r
1

q (psi'3
170 200
F'l~i. 14. Controller blending.
 Robust flight control 1535

pressure controller command was blended with
the high dynamic pressure controller command.
The piece-wise linear function was chosen for
simplicity, and a blending region of about 30 psf
seemed to minimize the transient blending
effects.
ANALYSIS OF RESULTS
This section describes the results and analysis
of the results from implementation of the control
system described in the previous sections. Flying
quality results based on low-order equivalent
short-period approximations are first presented.
Robustness to unmodeled dynamics and para-
metric uncertainties is then assessed, and finally
nonlinear time responses are presented.
Flying qualities analysis
Several flying qualities measures are used to
analyze the handling characteristics of the
aircraft and the designed control system. The
measures for short-term pitch response are given
in terms of low-order equivalent systems
(LOES) that represent pitch rate (q) responses
to pilot inputs (O/emd).
where ~sp is equivalent short-period damping,
O~sp is equivalent short-period frequency, To,
corre.sponds to the pitch rate zero, and re is
equivalent pitch time delay. Details of LOES
and acceptable values of the LOES parameters
are given in the Military Standard (1990). Since
the flying qualities parameters are based upon
the LOES given by equation (33), the mismatch
between the high-order systems and the LOES is
analyzed for the frequency range most notice-
able to the pilot (0.1-10rad/s). The mismatch
is quantified in the form of maximum unnotice-
able added dynamics and mismatch values
(Military Standards, 1990) from a transfer
function matching program. The complete
scheduled flight control system, full-order ac-
tuator models, and second-order aircraft short-
period models are used to generate high-order
closed loop aircraft linear models. Low-order
equivalent systems are generated from the
high-order models using an equivalent system
transfer function matching program.
The control anticipation parameter (CAP) is
defined as
2
O)sp

q
Kq(s+lle-'~o
To,/
O/cm d 2 ,
S 2 + 2~spWspS + COsp (33)
and Fig. 15 shows that all flight conditions meet

. ' • "

co (rad)
sp

I0 ~
lOO 101 ]02

n-"~za(m~d)

tx~l

O~spTO2
I,x,,d2
ioo

~e 0l
L~ll
(see)

%, ' ...... i0. ' ' ' '""~o, 1oo ~ 30o ~ ~o ~oo 7oo IDo 900 I~O
~,p (psf)
FIG. 15. Flying qualities parameters.
 1536
2O
is- "
io.
',
Gam~
(dB) o,____
sa. ..........
-10~
.15~-
-20,
l0 t
frequency (rad/see)
Category A, Level 1 flying qualities require-
ments for C A P and Wsp except at condition D4
which is slightly below Level 1. Figure 15 also
shows that Level 1 requirements are met for
°)spTo2, ~'sp, and r~. Obtaining Level 1 flying
qualities for parameters shown in Fig. 15,
corresponds to the most acceptable level of
handling qualities specifications.
The mismatch values from the equivalent
system transfer function matching program range
from 0.009 to 4.376 which suggest a close LOES
approximation (Military Standards, 1990). Figure
16 shows that the command to pitch rate added
high-order dynamics are well within the maxi-
mum allowable unnoticeable added dynamics
represented by the dashed lines. The mismatch
values and unnoticeable dyfiamics show that the
LOES estimates the full-order system well across
the flight envelope for frequencies of interest.
Robustness analysis"
Structured singular value analysis techniques
are used to analyze stability robustness of the
control system design to uncertainties corres-
ponding to unmodeled actuator and sensor
dynamics, parameters in the plant model, and
blending of high and low dynamic pressure outer
performance controllers.
A high-order detailed elevator actuator model
is reduced to a simple fourth-order model to
avoid very small time-step integration during
nonlinear simulation. The reduced-order act-
uator model is used in the analysis model, and
the difference between the high-order and
low-order models represents the unmodeled
actuator dynamics. The actual error dynamics
between these models are fit to a real rational
transfer function that represents the weighting
function for the actuator uncertainty
0.63s 2 + 3.03s + 0.078
WE = ~ (35)
s" + 68.4s + 1900
.I.M. BI'FFIN(;TON et al.
200[
150
I00
................ i Phase
-,<
...............i - ~ (deg) sot
i
-I~ ~
100 l0 b 10 100 101
frequency (rad/sec)
Fl(i. 16. Unnoticeable added dynamics.
The angle-of-attack and pitch rate sensor
dynamics are captured entirely as unstructured
uncertainty. The sensor dynamics are estimated
from flight test data of high performance aircraft
and fit to real rational transfer functions
representing measurement uncertainty weighting
functions
21.9s 2 + l120s + 91,100
W,~ = s2 + 574s + 1,140,000
(36)
0.745s 3 + 152s 2 + 95.9s + 1.38
Wq - s 3 + 626s 2 + 173,000s + 235,000
An extensive aerodynamic uncertainty data-
base, developed from wind tunnel and flight test
data, is used to generate structured uncertainty
models of stability and control derivatives. These
models are then translated into state-space
element uncertainty models. The state-space
element uncertainties depend on flight condition.
However, for simplicity, the uncertainty model
for each state-space element,
AA¢; = l ±0.02 rA,;(1.1)l 0 l
[+0.04 rA(;(2. 1)i i 2 rA,;(2, 2)1
(37)
= [+0.22 ]&;(l, l)l
ABe; L±0.04 p&;(2, 1) '
is held constant at the worst flight condition case
thus making the parameter" uncertainty models in
a sense conservative.
Recall from previous sections that for better
flying qualities, high and low dynamic pressure
performance controllers are designed and imple-
mented by blending both controller commands
with the blending parameter 6 8 . The blending
mechanism is normalized such that the blending
parameter for analysis, ~b, varies between 1
and 1. Therefore, analyzing robustness to 6b is
equivalent to analyzing robustness for all outer
loop controller command combinations.

IIe
0.~
la - upper bounds
03
0.¢
0..'
0.1
0.3
A4 j
0.2
0.1
0
10.2 10a l0 0
frequency (rad/sec)
FIG. 18. R o b u s t stability.
Figure 17 shows the robustness analysis model
including the structure of the uncertainty as well
as the normalization weighting elements. Figure
18 shows the robust stability plots of the
structure shown in Fig. 17 for all analysis
conditions (A1-A5) in Table 1. It is interesting
to note the absence of a peak near the short
period frequency suggesting insensitivity of the
short period dynamics to the given uncertainty
structure. The peak at approximately 10rad/s
corresponds to sensitivity to elevator actuation.
Recall that actuator models were not included
in the design of the control systems, thus the
sensitivity to actuation may be reduced by
including such models.
Nonlinear analysis
Longitudinal stick step inputs are used to
demonstrate performance of the control system
during nonlinear simulations at high, intermedi-
ate, and low dynamic pressure conditions. Recall
that two outer loop controller commands are
blended over a range of dynamic pressure
according to Fig. 14. Three different flight
conditions are chosen such that three different
Robust flight control 1537
FIG. 17. R o b u s t n e s s analysis model.
combinations of outer loop controller commands
are used. Figure 19 shows the nonlinear
responses of the aircraft model to identical
angle-of-attack unit step inputs at the three
different conditions. The elevator and angle-of-
attack responses in Fig. 19 are actually the
difference between the actual responses and the
corresponding trim values for comparison at
different flight conditions. The high and low
dynamic pressure conditions use only the high
and low dynamic pressure controllers, respec-
tively. The difference in response speed between
101 102 the high and low dynamic pressure flight
conditions is due to the different ideal models
being followed. However, the middle dynamic
pressure condition uses a combination of both
controllers resulting in responses between the
high and low dynamic pressure conditions. Note
that for this benign maneuver, thrust vectoring is
not required since the elevator does not rate nor
position saturate.
Figure 20 shows the nonlinear time responses
for a more drastic 10 deg angle-of-attack step
input that requires pitch thrust vectoring at the
low dynamic pressure condition. The angle-of-
attack response is a nicely damped second-order
response due to the ideal model-following
framework of the outer loop controller design.
This maneuver is severe enough to rate saturate
the elevator and thus engage the thrust vectoring
without going unstable and still maintaining
good performance. Recall that the daisy-chaining
logic within the control selector commands
thrust vectoring only when the elevator is
saturated.
CONCLUSIONS
A simple inner-outer loop control structure is
presented for robust flight control design.
Daisy-chaining is used as a practical mechanism
for blending thrust vector commands with
 Robust flight control 1539

q
(deg/see)
(deg)

i 2 ) a s

time (see) t i m e (see)

i,

i m
n q
Z ~.~
~),.: (psf)

L 2 ) 4 s I 2 3 4

t i m e (see) t i m e (see)

5 S
E PTV
(deg) (deg)

t 2 ) 4 $ i 2 2 4

time (see) time (see)

FIG. 20. Nonlinear 10 deg angle-of-attack step response at Mach = 0.3, h = 10 kft.

conventional elevator commands. H~ and
structured singular value theories are used to
design and analyze a control system that
accounts for desired flying qualities using an
implicit angle-of-attack ideal model. The full
conventional envelope controller is robust to
parametric uncertainty and unmodeled dynam-
ics and performs well in the nonlinear simula-
tion. The flight control design presented is a
good first step towards high angle-of-attack
supermaneuvering control design.
REFERENCES
Balas, G. J., A. K. Packard, J. C. Doyle, K. Glover and R.
Smith (1991). Development of advanced control design
software for researchers and engineers. In Proceedings of
the 1991 American Control Conference, Boston MA, pp.
996-1001.
Burlington, J. M., H. H. Yeh and S. S. Banda (1992). Robust
control design for an aircraft gust attenuation problem. In
Proceedings of the 31st Conference on Decision and
Control, Tucson, AZ, pp. 560-561.
Chiang, R. Y., M. G. Safanov, K. P. Madden and J. A.
Tekawy (1990). A fixed H~ controller for a super-
maneuverable fighter aircraft performing the Herbst
maneuver. Presented at the 29th IEEE Conference on
Decision and Control, Honolulu, HI.
Doyle, J. C. (1982). Analysis of feedback systems with
structured uncertainties. IEEE Proceedings D, 129(6),
242-250.
Doyle, J. C., J. Wall and G. Stein (1982). Performance and
robustness analysis for structured uncertainty. In
Proceedings of the 21st IEEE Conference on Design and
Control, Orlando, FL, pp. 629-636.
Doyle, J. C. (1985). Structured uncertainty in control system
design. In Proceedings of the 24th 1EEE Conference on
Decision and Control, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, pp. 260-265.
Doyle, J., K. Glover, P. Khargonekar and B. Francis (1989).
State-space solutions to standard /-/2 and Ha control
problems. IEEE Trans. Aurora. Control, 34(8), 831-847.
Doyle, J., A. Packard and K. Zhou (1991). Review of LFTs,
LMIs, and/~. In Proceedings of the 30th IEEU Conference
on Decision and Control, Brighton U.K., pp. 1227-1232.
Glover, K. (1984). All optimal Hankel-norm approximations
of linear multivariable systems and their L error bounds.
Int. J. Control, 39, 1115-1193.
Military Standard (1990). Flying qualities of piloted
airplanes. MIL-STD-1797A.
Safanov, M. G. and R. Y. Chiang (1988). Model reduction
for robust control: A Schur relative error method. Int. J.
Adaptive Control Signal Processing, 2, 259-272.
1540 J.M. BUVFtNGTON et al.

Shamma, J. S. and M. Athans (1992). Gain scheduling:
potential hazards and possible remedies. 1EEE Control
Systems Magazine, 12(3), 101-107.
Shaw, P. D., K. R. Haiges, S. R. Rock, J. H. Vincent, A.
Emami-Naeini, R. Anex, W. S. Fisk and D. F. Berg (1988).
Design Methods for Integrated Control Systems.
Technical Report, AFWAL-TR-88-2061, Wright-Patterson
AFB, OH.
Sparks, A. and S. Banda (1992). AppLication of structured
singular value synthesis to a fighter aircraft. In Proc. 1992
American Control Conference, Chicago, IL, pp. 1301-1305.
Yeh, H. H., J. L. Rawson and S. S. Banda (1992). Robust
control design with real-parameter uncertainties. In Proc.
1992 American Control Conference, Chicago. IL, pp.
3249-3256.