Intelligent Aerodynamic/Propulsion Flight Control For Flight Safety: A Nonlinear Adaptive Approach

This paper presents an intelligent fault tolerant flight control system that blends aerodynamic and propulsion actuation for safe flight operation in the presence of actuator failures. Fault tolerance is obtained by a nonlinear adaptive control strategy based on on-line learning neural networks and actuator reallocation scheme. The adaptive control block incorporates a recently developed technique for adaptation in the presence of actuator saturation, rate limits and failure. The proposed integrated aerodynamic/propulsion flight control system is evaluated in a nonlinear flight simulation environment.