Techniques for designing rotorcraft control systems

Over the last two and a half years we have been demonstrating a new methodology for the design of rotorcraft flight control systems (FCS) to meet handling qualities requirements. This method is based on multicriterion optimization as implemented in the optimization package CONSOL-OPTCAD (C-O). This package has been developed at the Institute for Systems Research (ISR) at the University of Maryland at College Park. This design methodology has been applied to the design of a FCS for the UH-60A helicopter in hover having the ADOCS control structure. The controller parameters have been optimized to meet the ADS-33C specifications. Furthermore, using this approach, an optimal (minimum control energy) controller has been obtained and trade-off studies have been performed.