During the summer of 1996 a series of¯ight tests demonstrated a new indirect-adaptive approach to recon-®gurable¯ight control known as the self-designing controller (SDC). The SDC achieves improved, appropriately decoupled responses during arbitrary effector or airframe impairment scenarios, and successful SDC¯ight tests culminated with smooth landing of the VISTA/F-16 in crosswind conditions with a (simulated) missing primary control surface (left horizontal tail). The SDC couples modelfollowing receding-horizon optimal control with an on-line parameter identi®cation (ID) algorithm designed to provide smooth, accurate estimates of possibly time-varying system parameters, even under conditions of low excitation. The adaptive model-following approach is designed to reduce control law development costs and improve system performance in the presence of gradual or abrupt changes, including unforeseen events. This paper provides (1) a brief summary of the SDC algorithms, (2) a discussion of SDC implementation on the VISTA/F-16¯ight control hardware, (3) a summary of¯ight test results, and (4) suggestions for further research in recon®gurable/adaptive controls.
This work has been supported
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