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Neural Flight Control SystemThe Neural Flight Control System (NFCS) was developed to address the need for control systems that can be produced and tested at lower cost, easily adapted to prototype vehicles and for flight systems that can accommodate damaged control surfaces or changes to aircraft stability and control characteristics resulting from failures or accidents. NFCS utilizes on a neural network-based flight control algorithm which automatically compensates for a broad spectrum of unanticipated damage or failures of an aircraft in flight. Pilot stick and rudder pedal inputs are fed into a reference model which produces pitch, roll and yaw rate commands. The reference model frequencies and gains can be set to provide handling quality characteristics suitable for the aircraft of interest. The rate commands are used in conjunction with estimates of the aircraft s stability and control (S&C) derivatives by a simplified Dynamic Inverse controller to produce virtual elevator, aileron and rudder commands. These virtual surface deflection commands are optimally distributed across the aircraft s available control surfaces using linear programming theory. Sensor data is compared with the reference model rate commands to produce an error signal. A Proportional/Integral (PI) error controller "winds up" on the error signal and adds an augmented command to the reference model output with the effect of zeroing the error signal. In order to provide more consistent handling qualities for the pilot, neural networks learn the behavior of the error controller and add in the augmented command before the integrator winds up. In the case of damage sufficient to affect the handling qualities of the aircraft, an Adaptive Critic is utilized to reduce the reference model frequencies and gains to stay within a flyable envelope of the aircraft.
Document ID
20030063933
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Authors
Gundy-Burlet, Karen
(NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 21, 2013
Publication Date
April 30, 2003
Subject Category
Aircraft Stability And Control
Meeting Information
Meeting: NASA Symposium on Computational Methods for Stability and Control
Location: Hampton, VA
Country: United States
Start Date: September 23, 2003
End Date: September 25, 2003
Sponsors: NASA Headquarters
Funding Number(s)
PROJECT: RTOP 704-01-32
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.
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