Piloted Simulator Evaluation Results of New Fault-Tolerant Flight Control Algorithm

Abstract

A high fidelity aircraft simulation model, reconstructed using the Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) of the 1992 Amsterdam Bijlmermeer aircraft accident (Flight 1862), has been used to evaluate a new Fault-Tolerant Flight Control Algorithm in an online piloted evaluation. This paper focuses on the piloted simulator evaluation results. Reconfiguring control is implemented by making use of Adaptive Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (ANDI) for manual fly by wire control. After discussing the modular adaptive controller setup, the experiment is described for a piloted simulator evaluation of this innovative reconfigurable control algorithm applied to a damaged civil transport aircraft. The evaluation scenario, measurements and experimental design, as well as the real-time implementation are described. Finally, reconfiguration test results are shown for damaged aircraft models including component as well as structural failures. The evaluation shows that the FTFC algorithm is able to restore conventional control strategies after the aircraft configuration has changed dramatically due to these severe failures. The algorithm supports the pilot after a failure by lowering workload and allowing a safe return to the airport. For most failures, the handling qualities are shown to degrade less with a failure than the baseline classical control system does.

Adaptive Backstepping Flight Control for Modern Fighter Aircraft

“…The fast reaction of the pilot to the unexpected movements caused by an unknown, sudden change in dynamic behavior of the aircraft in combination with the immediate online adaptation may lead to unexpected results. Pilots may need to learn to thrust the adaptive element in the flight control system, as was already observed in an earlier study involving a damaged large passenger aircraft [133].…”

“…NDI with NN was also used on the F-15 ACTIVE ( Figure 1.4(b)) under the intelligent flight control system program of the NASA [21,22]. A Boeing 747 fitted with a NDI controller combined with RLS for the online model identification was successfully tested in a moving base simulator [131,132,133]. In recent years adaptive backstepping flight control in combination with some form of neural networks has become a popular research subject, see e.g.…”

Hybrid Sensor-Based Backstepping Control Approach with Its Application to Fault-Tolerant Flight Control

“…Edwards et al [4], which enables the results in this paper to be compared to the results presented in [4,5]. It should be noted that the altitude tracking control task would be switched into flight path angle command tracking mode at the 650 th second in order to mimic a landing process with fixed gliding slope (i.e.γ = −3 deg).…”

“…In order to make the angular controller have a high level performance, the NDI control law from [5] is utilized to design an angular controller for the Boeing 747-200 aircraft. The reference commands for the inner rate loop are derived from the angular control loop as follows:…”

“…More recently, the work of Lombaerts et al [5], as a part of the GARTEUR FM-AG 16 program, has provided practical validation results of a piloted adaptive nonlinear dynamic inversion (ANDI) controller on the Simulation, Motion, and Navigation (SIMONA) research simulator (SRS). The kernel of this work is a two-step online identification approach aiming at getting the physical model.…”