Experimental Validation of L1 Adaptive Control: Rohrs’ Counterexample in Flight

The paper presents new results on the verification and in–flight validation of an L1 adaptive flight control system, and proposes a general methodology for verification and validation of adaptive flight control algorithms. The proposed framework is based on Rohrs’ counterexample, a benchmark problem presented in the early 80s to show the limitations of adaptive controllers developed at that time. In this paper, the framework is used to evaluate the performance and robustness characteristics of an L1 adaptive control augmentation loop implemented onboard a small unmanned aerial vehicle. Hardware–in–the–loop simulations and flight test results confirm the ability of the L1 adaptive controller to maintain stability and predictable performance of the closed loop adaptive system in the presence of general (artificially injected) unmodeled dynamics. The results demonstrate the advantages of L1 adaptive control as a verifiable robust adaptive control architecture with the potential of reducing flight control design costs and facilitating the transition of adaptive control into advanced flight control systems.