Robust MRAC augmentation of flight control laws for center of gravity adaptation

TL;DR

This paper explores augmenting flight control laws with robust MRAC to improve handling of center of gravity shifts in aircraft, especially for highly maneuverable fighter jets, addressing measurement challenges and robustness.

Contribution

It introduces a robust MRAC augmentation method for flight control systems to better adapt to center of gravity variations in aircraft.

Findings

Enhanced robustness in flight control with MRAC augmentation.

Potential for improved handling of abrupt c.g. shifts.

Analysis of benefits and issues of the proposed method.

Abstract

When an aircraft is flying and burning fuel the center of gravity (c.g.) of the aircraft shifts slowly. The c.g. can also be shifted abruptly when e.g. a fighter aircraft releases a weapon. The shift in c.g. is difficult to measure or estimate so the flight control systems need to be robustly designed to cope with this variation. However for fighter aircrafts with high manoeuvrability there is room for improvements. In this project we investigate if the use of adaptive control law augmentation can be used to better cope with the change in c.g. We augment a baseline controller with a robust Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) design and analyse its benefits and possible issues.