Digital adaptive controllers for VTOL vehicles. Volume 1: Concept evaluation

A digital self-adaptive flight control system was developed for flight test in the VTOL approach and landing technology (VALT) research aircraft (a modified CH-47 helicopter). The control laws accept commands from an automatic on-board guidance system. The primary objective of the control laws is to provide good command-following with a minimum cross-axis response. Three attitudes and vertical velocity are separately commanded. Adaptation of the control laws is based on information from rate and attitude gyros and a vertical velocity measurement. The final design resulted from a comparison of two different adaptive concepts--one based on explicit parameter estimates from a real-time maximum-likelihood estimation algorithm, the other based on an implicit model reference adaptive system. The two designs were compared on the basis of performance and complexity.