LMI-based robust flight control of an aircraft subject to CG variation

Abstract

This article presents a simple and effective design method for the single robust flight controller of a highly manoeuvring aircraft subject to centre of gravity (CG) variation in flight. This methodology is based on an linear matrix inequality (LMI) regional pole-placement design framework for the polytopic models for the CG variation ranges. The application of this method for a design of stability/control augmentation system for the longitudinal flight control system of a high-performance aircraft is shown. Simulation results show that the proposed LMI-based regional pole-placement design methodology robustly yields consistent performances with adequate Level 1 flying qualities over the entire CG variation range.

Keywords:

• flight control
• CG variation
• LMI
• robust pole placement
• flying quality