hlocieliiig aid Control of an

Electro-Hydrosta,tic .$ctuat,or*

December 16. 1994

Abstract trol of actuators h a not fully been explored in

the past, This research focuses on the modeling
.4d vanced Elect ro-Hydrostatic .4ctuat.ors offer a and control of an advanced Electro-Hydrostatic
high degree cif maintainability and combat survjv- Actuator (EKA). Electric motors have a limited
ability of aircraft fiight control systems, because torque-to-mass ratio, due t o the finite and lim-
all the components necessary t o operate the actu- ited magnetic fiux density t h a t can be generated
ator are collc~catedwith the actuator. The Qua,- [?I.High pressure hydraulic systems, with the s\'s-
tiLative Feedback Theory robust control method is tem pressure of 2000 to 5000 psi, can generate
used to design a controller for the actuat.or. Tlie high forces resulting i n higher torque-to-mass ra-
impact of parameter variations, sensor noise. and tios than in eiectric motors. Generally, high pres-
flight condition variabiiit). are esplicit.ly consid- sure hydraulic syst.elns are stifier against tlle load
ered in the design process. T h e controlier utilizes than electric motors. Hence, the EHA employs
a t w o loop feedback controls structure. T h e re- a hybrid approach, where a brushless DC motor
suiring linear design is not only robust with rr- drives a hydraulic p u m p t o circulate high pressure
spec: to plant parameter \,ariations, but is also fiuid int.0 the piston chamber. Thus, the DC mo-
insensirive to the efiects of sensor noise. Further- to: iniernal LO the fE.4 converts electrical power
more, the ac;:uator's phase lag is reduced by in- into nieciianical power. I t is the pump that con-
corporating phase constraints i n the Q F T design verts this mechanical power into h y d r a u l i c power.
paradigm; thus. improving the performance of the Tlie hydraulic power. acting against the pisr on? is
o\'erdl flight control sJ9stem. converted to mechanical power capable of moving
large fiight control surfaces.
A l i n e u mathematical model of the EHA is
1 Int r d u t ion
(3 c derived in Section 2 . The models for the indi-
vidual EHA components: motor, pump, piston,
Actuators art: a critical subsystem in any flight
fiight control surface (inertia), and hinge moment
control systems; however, robust automatic con-
are explained. T h e EHA model is rearranged to
'This is declared work of the U.S. Government and form a two loop feedback controls structure. T h e
is not subject to copyright protection in the United controller design process is described in Section 3.
StaLes.
T h e inner loop controller is designed t o increase
TCaptain, C'SAF
the outer loop robustness. T h e outer loop con-
:Associate f'rofessor
$Professor
troller and prefilter are designed to enforce the ro-

'Captain, USAF ~ WL/FIGS, Wright Patterson AFB

545 U.S. Government work not protected by U.S. copyright

 Rotor Inenia Jm
~
Motor Dammng -Bn
//////A777
Staior
Figure 1: l I o t o r llotlel
bust tracking of connmartds. The controller design
is validated by simulations. Iii Section 4. t h e sensi-
tivities of tlie EIiA controller and of an alterriatixe
high gain control system to sensor noise. are aii-
alyzed. The QFT desigii is compared agaiiist the
high gain design for sensor noise and bias liandliiig
characteristics. In Section 5. tlie EH.4 is incor-
porated in a flight control system and i t s perfor-
mance is compared against the performances of a
flight control system with first-order and fourtli-
order conventional hydraulic actuator models.
2 Actuator Modeling
2.1 Motor
?vIot.ors with the rotor moment of inertia J,, [in =
lb* s e c 2 ] and electro-iriechaiiical darnping B,,[iu=
ib * scc] (see Fig. 1). are subject t o variations
iri output torqiie arid snbzeqnent finciuntiona i1i
iot,or spced d , n , Since t h e torque d u e 10 t h e load
colinteracts the torque generaTed by t h e motor,
perturbation may also be caused by variations of
the load torque. This re!ationsliip is espresseil as.
where q i o n d is t h e load t,oryue due to t h e differen-
tial pressure of tlie fluids. T h i s result,s i n a first
order transfer function
5 46
2.2 P u m p and Fluid
'The floir r a t e Qlii geiiernted by the p u m p is pro-
portioiial t o the motor specd
where D,,[ i n 7 / r e v ] represents t h e p u m p displace-
men! constant.
I 1 1 e flo\v r a t e of the liydr;Liilic fluid is primar-
ily dependent o n two factors: change iii cii,irnbrr
v o l u m e aiid change in pressure d u e to t h e coin-
pres>ihilit?- effect of t h e fluid [']. Tlie ciiarnlier
\ oliinis changes as the piston moves through the
cliamber at .;peed S,. The flow rate due to tlie
cliaiiges i n charnl>er volume is then expressed as
=.AS,. Secoiidary fluid effects include fluid cum-
lity effects. internal leakase flow. arid ex-
teriial i+akage flow. T h e EHX desisners elected
t o model these secondary effects with a fiist-order
differential equation
This resi:its in a transfer function
1
(5)
2.3 Piston and Flight Control
Surface
The p r e s i i r e developed 1)y t h e p u m p ;incl fluid
itcis 011 tlie piston siirface (sec Fig. 2 ) . caiisiiig
t h e € ) . A l l to esteiid or retract. This force t l i c ~ i
s e n e r a t e s a torqiie tiiroug!i a hinge to deficct :lie
control surface. 'Iliis torque h a s t o O V C I - C O I I ~ Rt \ y o
load compoiients: coiilrol surface i n e r t i n and aero-
dh-nsmic loads. The aerodynaniic load 0111)-occurs
i n flight. wlieii tlie ai: pressure over the control
surface applies aerodynamic reaction forces to it
The aerodynamic load is deterriiined by three fac-
tors: the sixface area of tlie flight. control siirface,
dynamic pressure which varies with altitude and
airepct-tl, and t h e surface's r c l a t i v c angle to tile
\rind. The surlace's angle t o the wind depcnds on
the surface deflection aiigle and on the aircraft's
aiigle of attack.

Figure 2: Sirriplified A c t u a t o r C o n t r o l Systein
- S o t D r a w n to Scale
rigid. T h i s is B valid assumption) since the iiatiiral
freqnency of t,he hinge foi a well drsigiied system
is ~iiricligieater thaii its bairdwidtli. The a ~ ~ i i i i 1 1 ~ -
tiori of rigidity breaks down at Iiigh freqiiriicies.
but can safely hr ignored for tlie controller debigii
procedure since it is well above the bandwidth fre-
queiicy.
The piston and load dynamics are still es-
pressed as

Flexible Hinge Joint Model Tlie magni-

tude of FA aciiiirg on tlie piston is equal to ’PA,
where P is tlic. differential pressure developed by
the pump and A [zn’j is the surface area of the
piston. T h u s , the force created by the p u m p and
FR -- - =
rL JJ,S’OL + Br.sCjj, (I.))
applied by t!ie fluid can be expressed as 8h Rh
FA = P A (6) Assuming rigidit,y of tlie Iiinge assembly, F R z 1 ’ ~ .
Hence, adding Eqs. (10) and (13) results in.
T h e piston dynamics. w i t h the piston mass M ,
[ l b f * s e c 2 / i n ]aiid piston damping B, [ I b j * s e c / z n ] ,
can be described by a second-order model
FA- +
= ’21, s 2 s, 13,s r;, + J L s 2 0 L + ULsOr,
Rh ft h
i13)
FA - F p = M,s2Sp + B,s,Y, (7) where rL is dcfiiied as
T h e resnlting ‘torqne acting on the flight control rL = (Lond,,,,)Or. (1.1)
surface d u e t o this force ir:ihalaiice can be de-
scribed by Since rigidity implies that S, = S L aiid Or. =
+:->Eq. ( 1 3 ) is further reduced t o

where l<h [in 1 lb/rnri] is the hinge stiffness con-

staiit and Rh [in]is tile bkingelength. T h e stabda- ili)
tor‘s inertia act.s against. t h e torque generatrd by or, expressed in transfer frinction forin
tlie actuator, siich t h a t 1
- -
-l-,(s) - ilG)
PE(5) S[(JI, + 2R Li ) s + ( D p+ %,I

Stiff Hinge Joint Model Equations (7 24 ~i~~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

ttirougii 9) represent a rather complex model of
the load dynamics. The complexity of t h e model T h e term aerodynamic loads mentioned in Section
can be reduced if t h e linkage between t h e actua- 2 . 3 desciibes t h e amount of torque opposing the
tor and flight control surface is considered as being piston’s motion. T h e load generated by the flow

547
 Figure 3: Bare EHA Block Diagram
of air above arid below the flight control surface
applies a torque on the hinge assembly, which i n
turn adds back-pressure t o the piston. This hinge
moment is modeled as fol!ows:
where S, denotes t h e surface area of the control
surface, tlenot.es t h e aerodynamic pressure. and
C h , and Ch;r denote the hinge moment coeffi-
cients of t h e control surface Tvith respect to angle
of attack and surface deflection.
T h e aerodynamic load’s dynamic pressure p is a
function of airspeed VC,and air density p , as shown
in Eq. (18) [TI. The air density in a standard at-
mosphere drops expoiientially {sith iiicreasiiig al-
titude. Tlie tlyrramic pressure q increases as the
51acli number gets liiglier and altitude gets lower.
q = ;pr; (18)
T h e hinge moment for niodern fighters with st.a-
bilator, where Ch= ;= Clra, is modeled by
2.5 Short Period Approximation
If t h e aircraft’s forward speed is assumFd constant
(i.e., U E 0), the X force equation can be neglected
since it does not significantly contribute to the
short period oscillation [l]. Thereby, t h e short
548
period approximation of the aircraft’s longitudinal
channel is extracted and is written as,
This yields a second-order minimum-phase trans-
fer function of the form:
a(.) - -li(s+a)
__ -
&(s) (3 + h j ( s + c) (21)
For the frequency of interest, the short pe-
riod approximation closely resembles the full s t a t e
model. As seen in Fig. 4, the phase and attenu-
ation characteristics are closely matched at. high
frequency. Tlie solid lines represent the full st.ate
model frequency response and ’+’
lines represent
the short period model frequency response. T h e
approximat,ion, as seen in the figure. is n o t valid
for frequencies below 0.5 rad/sec d u e to t.lre effects
from the slow phugoid mode.
3 Compensator Design
In order to proceed with t h e QFT design, t h e
block model as shown in Fig. 3 most first be
transformed t o a state space model Using block
manipulation rules, Fig. 3 is rnanipuldted to form
the standard inner and outer QFT loop structures
shown i n Fig. 5 . The inner loop controls the angu-
lar rate of the motor while the outer loop coritrols

Figure 4: Comp.zrison of Full and Short Period
.Ipproximat ion for the Longit udinai Equa-
tions of Motion
t h e surface deflection. Since tracking iii the inner
loop is n o t important. for its function is to reduce
t h e uncertainty lwei of the outer loop. tlie inner
loop prefilter can be set to iinity. The trackinq
performance enforcement is relegated to the outer
loop's prefilter F,:).
3.1 Inner 1;oop Control
The piirpose of the inner loop design is to facil-
i t a t e the desiqn of a robust onter loop, without
the problems associated with excessive gains. T h e
inner loop robustness effectively shrinks the re-
gion of uncertaiury !,i.e.. the template size) of the
oiiter loop. while also increasing the outer loop
gain margin. Tile inner loop controls the angular
rate of the electric motor. T h e direction of the
motor rotation timeterrninesthe direction of How
o i the Iivdrariiic fiiiitl. nntl iiltimately t l i e piston
direction. T h e rise time is t,he dominant liesign
constraint in the inner loop.
Figure 6 shows the flight conditions consitl-
ereti. Both siibsonic and supersonic points are
tested to determine t h e maxirnnm template width.
IVliilc t,iir dynamic p r e s s u r e parameter (7 piays the
most significant role in enlarqing t h e template size,
the aircraft damping m t i nasirral frequencies for
given nititudr a n t i airspeeti also play a siqnificant
;p...<{
: e '.,. ............................................
utcr L o o p
.........
,; .:qFT.Tn n c r L,.-
,'up .........................
-1:
..................................................
.................................................................
/i
Figure .J: T w o Feedback Loops i n Q F T Two
Degrees of Freedom Structrire
Figure ti: X typical modern fighter flight en-
velope a n d t h e flight conditions considered for
1llJ
_I
,jets)
role. Two flight conditions ac41, (1.000 Et alti-
tude and 4lach l.l), and adS. (:?O,OOO ft d t i t n d e
and Mach O.58), tleterniine the perimeter of t,he
plant templates. Sirice the flight condir,ions ac18
anti ac41 result in r.he largest template iize. the
EH,\ parameters are varied to enlnrse the tern-
plates tiescribed by these flight conditions. The
largest Lempiate is a t t,he freqnency of 5 r;itl,/sec.
with about 22 degrees in width im(i 6 t i B in height,.
The inner loop compensator dionltl tie o f low
order. A iinity forward gnnii is siitficieut to iar,isfy
the inner loop optimal boiincls, bill it also recjiiires
the outer loop gain to he Iiiqli. 'Tliroiiqii s r ~ v e r a l
desigri ireratioii. ii gain of 10 is irsed i n the inner
549
Figure 7 : Inner Loop C o m p e n s a t o r Design - Figure S: O u t e r Loop Compensator Design
Tlle loop transniissioii is steered t h r o u g h t lie
t r o u g h , as required.
It is reasonable to conclude that the actuator
is q u i t e stiff from the load end: hence, the ester-
loop ~vliiclireduces t h e gain required i n t h e outer rial disturbance can be ignored (i.e., d z ( t ) = 0 ) .
loop. .4pole at the origin is introduced t o create a T h e FHA should provide adequate internal dis-
type 1 system. t.0 eiisiire tracking of a step inpiit. turbance (i.e.. d l ( f ) = U-,(!)) reject.ion by atten-
This pole also allows the nominal loop to fall be- uating t h e disturbance input by -20 d B or more.
tween the crevices of the optimal bounds: as call Hence. t!ie disturbance bound specification is de-
be seen in Fig. 7. T h e iiomiiial plant transmission fined as
a t 1 rad/sec can be situated as low as 48 d B by us-
ing the phase and magnitude information. instead
of 74 d B by using t h e magnitude information only.
This equates t o a gain reduction of about 20. T h e fiiglit conclitions c~efille the perime,er
inner loop compensator transfer function is of the plant templates are ac28 and a c q l . a t the
opposite ends of t h e envelope. ,4 DC gain of 60 is
G m ( s )=
1000(s + 15) required t o bring t h e noininal open loop trairsrriis-
s(S + ison) (32)
sion above the respective optimal b o u ~ i d sshown
in Fig. 8. X pole a t 8.5 radjsec aiid a zero at
14.5 rad/sec are added to meet the optimal and
stability boiiiitls. A pair of cornplrs poles are
3.2 O u t e r Loop Control . .
a t i d ~ dat -200 i 3200 t o swing the traiisinission
iine across t.lie -180 degree phase line. Fignre 8
AA cOmlnOn lnodel of convelitiona, a i r c r a f t actil-
e r ~ tile tlorninarlt pole
a t o r s is of ~ o l i r t ~ i ~ o r d,vith s h o \ ~ that
s the nomirial loop trniisrriission satibfies
lorated at &bout -20 [6]. ~l~~~ all tile required bounds. T h e resulting coriipen-
of refer-

eilce is used to build tile upper and lower t,rackillg sator's transfer function is shown in Cq. (26).
~ O U R ~ SThus,
. tracking bounds that satisfy both
t h e time and frequency specifications a r e defined G ~ (= ~ )
2.813793 * 106(s 14.5) +
as (s +
4- 8.5)(sz 400s 80000) ( 2 6 ) +
270(s + 5O)(s + 400) A prefilter with t.liird order zeros over third
T,"(S)
=
( 8 + 4 5 ) [ s + 60)(s + 2000)
(23) order poles is required t o satisfy the bouitds. A
z e r o and t w o poles at high frequency are required
and t o satisfy the frequency specifications, magnitude
'Loo as well a phase. T h e resulting prefilter transfer
T,i(s)= (s + lo)(. -+ 30) ("1 function is slioivii i n Eq. (27).

550
 F i g u r e 9: O u t e r Loop Prefilter Design F i g u r e 10: O u t e r Loop Time D o m a i n U n i t
S t e p Disturhaiice R e s p o n s e

=-
(s + 3 . 6 ) ( s + 8)(s + 4444.4) (27) .i--
1 '
FO(5)
(ti + 3 . 2 ) ( s + 200)(s + 200) ' '

T h e time and frequency responses are simu-

lated using t h e Xlatlab Siniulink block niodels,
not the reduced order transfer functions iised in
the controller design process. Fignres 10 t,o 1 2
slioiv the system response in both t h e time and
frequency doini~ins. As especbed, Fig. 10 slioivs
t h a t the disturbmce i n p u t is rejected at levels well
below the specification. Figure 11 shows t,he time
domain response of t h e system to a unit step in-
F i g u r e 11: Outer Loop T i m e D o m a i n Pilit
put. T h e systern shows a slight oscillation, primar-
Step Input R e s p o n s e
ily due t o the pair of conipIex poles near t h e origin
froin the aircraft short period module. However,
t.lie rise and settling t.inies are quite f a t . All plants
settle to 98% of tlie final value witIiin 0.3 seconds.
T h e oscillation^, and violation of t,lie bounds are
deemed acceptable, since the magnitude of t h e vi-
olations ace reln.tiveIy small.
n a l frequency respoiises are ob-
!,ained by coin II'Iail d i ng t h e in di viti u a1 pl an t s wit 11
a sinusoid input lia\~inga magnitude of 0.5%, of
tlie m a s i m n ~ npiston t.rave1 and frequencies vary-
ing from 0.5 rad/sec to 200 rad/sec. T h e peaks of
both the reference and t h e output signals are first
det,ected, then the attenuation and phase bet,ween
t,lie peaks are computed. By repeating the process
over a predefined set of frequencies, a set of 'Bode
plot' d a t a is derived. T h e dashed lines in both
t h e magnitude and phase plots are t h e minimum
values allowed in t h e EfIA specifications. As can F i g u r e 12: Outer Loop Small-Signal Fre-
be seen in Fig. I?. all plants stay well above t.he quency Do 111a ii I Sinusoid a1 I n 1' 11t Res p o m e
specification boundaries

551

Figure 13. Addition of LI'DT Sensor Soise
QI'T Fect1l)acli S t r u c t u r e
4 Sensor Noise Effects
In this design, two observable states, t h e piirnp
iiiotor's angular rate and the piston positionj are
measured and iised for t h e synthesis of feedback
controls. Tachometers are used to seiise t h e rota-
tional velocities: while Linear \;ariahle Differential
Transformers (LL'DT); embedded inside t h e actu-
ator piston chamber, are used to sense t h e piston
RA11 movement [2]. X11 sensors introduce some
degree of inaccuracy. There are two basic types of
~neasrireineiiterrors tliat are dealt. with in this pa-
per: randoin and bias. IVitli random errors, the
signals can take on any values within a band of
finite size from tlie nominal \.dues. Sensor bias
errors entail offsets from tlie nominal value by a
constant amonnt. 'The senbor errors can either be
introduced gradually o w r the lifetime of t h e sen-
sor (i.e., {war and tear) or introdnced abruptly
tliie t o compoiieiit failures. Tlie degree of bia.s er-
rors 01 random noise determines the width of the
error band.
It is a well k n o w n fact t h a t a lrigli system gain
tencis t,o amplify the effects of sensor noise; hence,
t.he most effective connterineasure t o sensor noise
is to decrease t h e control system's loop gain as
much as possible, wliiie still meeting specifica-
tions, e.g., tracking and distnrhance rejection [TI.
QFT is an ideal design niethod I O econorriically
satisfy this balance. T h e troughs in the conipos-
ite bounds on the Nichols chart can be exploited
during loop shaping, and they allow for substan-
tial gain rediictions.
4.1 Random Sensor Noise Error
T h e advantages of tlie Q F T design caii
seen i n Figs. 14 tlirorigii 16, wliicli sininlate the ef-
fects of L\'DT sensor noise (random error) i n t h e
Q F T structure as slioivii in Fig. 13. T h e masi-
m u m error tolerat,ion level of t.ypical aircraft qual-
ity actuator Rr\M LVDTs is about one percent [8].
This uncertain feedback quantity can then cause
chattering, or noise, on t h e output as the feed-
back control system tries to zero o u t the error.
111
l'nit step responses with 1% sensor uncertainties
of both tlie high forward gain and QFT designs
are shown in Fig. 14. I n Figs. 14 and 15, t h e
figures (a) are t.he high forward gain design re-
sponses, while the figures (b) are the Q F T design
responses. Tlie zero-noise responses for the re-
spective designs are shown as dashed lines in all
the fignres. As can be seen from t h e figures, the
QFT design substantially outperforms the high
gain design. T h e effect of noise is almost negli-
gible in t h e QFT design, while noise effects are
quite visible jn tlie high gain design.
T h e differences are even more startling as t h e
signal to noise ratio is decreased from 100 t o 1.
Even with t h e sensor noise level equal t o t.hat
of the co~nniandedinpnt, t,he Q F T design nom-
iiially tracks the unit st,ep command. But with
the high gain design, the ont.put is fairly chaotic,
with t h e output amplified t o about six times t h e
co m man ded sign al.
.\ noise error function shown of IAE type [3]
in Eq. (28) is used t o qiiant.it.at.ively compare t,he
controller performances.
E = l1 nbs(ynomtnal(t) - ~notre(i))dt (28)
T h e noise error function measures tlie deviation
of tlie non-zero noise response from the nominal
(i.e.; zero noise) res;)onse.
4.2 Sensor Bias Error
The QFT deqign handles sensor bias errors better
than tlie high gain de5ign. If the feedback sig-
nal is offset from t h e actual output level due t o a
sensor bias, control systems will chase after an off-
set steady s t a t e value rather than t h e conimanded
552
 ko:vy/
i OG . . . . .
i 04 . .. . . . . .. .
02
07 Id)

0 01 02 03 09 05 06 07 08 09 1
'0 01 02 03 04 05 O b 07 08 09 1

-I ' '1
$
1 0O 4
8

02
0
0 01 02 03 01 05 06 07 08 09 1
llmslae)

~ i ~ 1~1: , , ~ s ~ ~R , ~~ \\,it],
~ ~
LVDT ~Figure ,17: Unit. ~ with ~Sensor ~
~ S t e p ~Response
Sigiial t o floise R a t i o of 100. Bias Error of il%

015

v
lT
-
05

i(:
o 01 02 03 01 05 06 07 on 09 1
'0 01 02 03 0 4 05 06 07 08 09 1

2 0 8
06 $06
100 I O 4

02
02 I bl
0 0 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 06 09 1
0 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 1
llmO[Se2l
llnolra)

rigure 15 linlt Step R ~ ~ \\.ltl,

~ I,\'DT
, ~ , ~1s. ~Unit Step R e s p o n s e with Sensor
~Figure
Slgiial to Noise Ratio of 1 Bias Error of &lo%,

value. Even with just 1% sensor bias level, the

output steady st,ate error of t h e high gain design.
shown in Fig. lT(a), is ahorit +IS% wliile t h e er-
ror for t.he Q F T design. shown in Fig. I T ( [ > ) , is
about *I%.
T h e problem worsens in Fig. 18, where t h e sen-
sor bias error of about i l O % is applied. As seen
in Fig. l8(b), t h e Q F T design limits thc error to
about i l O % , while the high gain design, as seen
in Fig. 18(a), amplifies t h e error to about klOO'l0.
Figure 16: Noise Error Fullctions due to tl,e Wliile the QFT &sign limits t h e outpiit, error t.o
the Icvel of the bias, t.lie high gain desigil a~nplifies
Chariges i n Signal t o Noise Ratio
the effect of the bias by 1 0 to 15 times. Again, the

553
QFT design is better at handling sensor bias than
the high gain design.

5 Flight Control System

5.1 Pitch Control System
The true test of the actuator design IS t o evalnate
the actuator performance a5 an integral compo-
nent of a flight control system. T h e flight control
system is designed init.ial1y with the comnionly
used first-order actuator niotlel [l]. The re-
Figure 19: A Pitch Control Flight Control Sys-
sults are then compared against the fourtli-order
F-16 stahilator actuator and EH.\ models. T h e
fourth-order conventional actuator model is
~ctuaror

i s t con^. 1
i
' t,

o 36 1
1 .Up

i 022
t,
(sec)
0.85
t,
(sec)
I 10 -
EH.4 0 36 1044 j 0 75 0 95
T h e first-order actuator model is frequently
~

i 4 t h Co:iv. 1 0 31 i i 030 1 0 I;& 0 76

used in text book settings to simphi>- the model.
However, the first-order model does not correctly
represent the high frequency phase lag of the ac-
tual physical system [GI. h fourth-order actua-
tor model, such as Eq. (29) \r,hich accurately
describes the phase characteristics of the actual
physical system, should he used to design flight
control systems. However, the conventional ac-
tuator control systems have undesirabie amount
of phase lag at the npper end of the bandwidth.
Thus. the EHA coiitrol system is designed to re-
duce the high bandwitlth freqneiicy phase lag. T h e
reduced phase lag can minimize the chances of
actuator rate saturation. T h e E H A niotie! ac-
curately predicts the performance of tile physical
system and behaves much like a first-order model.
5.2 Sirnulatioris
T h e time domain simulations of the flight con-
trol system using different actuator models are
shown in Fig. 20. Tlie dotted, dashed. and solid
lines correspond to t.he results for the first-order
conventional, the fourth-order conventional, and
the EH A models, respectively. Time domain re-
sponses among three actuator models are similar
and the responses are slight.lg underdamped. T h e
FOX1 are shown in Table 1.
T h e conventional fourth-order act riator model
di spl ay s more r ea1ist i c phase i d o r m itt io 11 t ha n t 11t
first-order modei. Tlie phase lag difTerence be-
ttveen the first-order and fourth-order models at
the high end of the aircraft bandwidth can be as
large as 30 degrees [GI.
Frequency si~nuiationsof the pitch coutrol sys-
tems are shobvn in Fig. 21. The d a d - d o t t e d ,
dashed. and solid lines correspond t o the res\Ilis
fr o m t lie h r st- or der conve 11t ioii a1, the four t 11-ortier
conventional, and the EH.A models, respectively.
Tlie first-order and E H h models behave in a sirn-
ilar manner, but the fourth-order model exhibits
much more lag at the high bandwidth frequency.
Some lead is added to meet the given frequency
domain specifications; specifications which t lie
cori\entional fourth-order actuator (model) could
n o t meet. Indeed, the conventional fourth-order
actuator model suffers from excessive phase lag at
high frequency. T h e phase lead is achieved by low
frequency zeros, reducing the phase lag at high fre-

554
 nrathematical modrl of an ad\~ancetl EIIiZ is de-
rived from basic device principles. Tlte niztlie-
niatical inodel that cornpleteiy describes tlie E I I A
dynamics is required to design a control system.
T h e nse of QFT for the control of t.lre actLiator
establishes a rigorous design procediire antl facil-
itat,es other EHA control system dejigiis i n the
fu t,n re.
T h e QFT controller t1es;gn is compared against
the high gain design for sensor noise handling
characteristics. T h e effrcts of sriisor noise are
Figure 20: Time Domain S i m u l a t i o n s of t h e almost negligible in the QFT control system re-
P i t c h Control System at M a c h 0.7 and 30,000 sponse while the effects of sensor noise dominate
ft A l t i t u d e t!ie high gain control m response. Tlte QI'T
controller nominally t t h e unit step col~1rniIrlti
-r-- ' I even wit,li the signal to noise ratio of 1, while the
high g a i n design fails to track the command.
T h e E H A model used in a siniple flight control
system is compared against the same flight coil-
trol system with tlie first-order arid foiirth-order
conventional iiycir aulic actuator models. Some
lead is added to the E H A control m to
meet. the given fiiglit control syst,ern frequency
domain specifications; specifications which con-
s,.q,.-., /!._.Cl ventional fourth-order act.uator (model) can not
meet. thus^ the flight control system with the
Figure 21: Frequency Domain Siinulatio~isof EHA model is more stable \vit.li respect t o gain
t h e Pitch Co~itrolSystem a t AIsch 0.7 and variations than the flight control system wit11 a
30,000 ft Altitude foiirt 11-order c o n ~ e niorial
t actuator iiiodel. Fii r-
thermore, the amount o f lag at t,he upper band-
widtli frequency is reduced \vit!i tlie E H A niociel.
qiiencies t o within specifications. T h e main short- whicli minimizes the chances for actuator rate sat-
fall of using t h e iirst-order rnotlc! is that i t does not uration. Hence, the coritrolled EH.,\ hchaves like
accuratcdy describe tlie frequency domain behav- a first-order actuator model. antl ?et tl,e iicielity
ior of the actuator. 'The EHX model. composed of the actuator model has not sacrificed..
of the actuator and compensator components. be-
haves like t tie first-order actuator model, yet fully
describes its beliavior. References
Blakelock, John €1. Azitonicitic Control of.42,-
6 Conclusions crclft a n d illissiles, Kew York: John iViley k
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d e Silva. Clarence W. Control Sensors und
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Actuntors, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Iiall,
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The sub-component dynamic models are used
t c construct the required EHA model. r e s u l h g in D'Azzo, Jolin J. arid Hoiipis, Constantine
a complex feedback structure shown in Fig. 3 . A 1%.L i n e a t Control S y s t e m Analysis a n d De-

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556