Control law design to improve the unexpected pitch motion in slow down turn maneuver

Abstract

The highly maneuverable fighter aircraft is exposed to unexpected pitch motion such as over-N-z (normal acceleration) and N-z-drop characteristics in transonic and supersonic flight conditions with moderate angle of attack. These characteristics not only degrade flying qualities by destabilizing the aircraft but also threaten flight safety by increasing the structural load. This article proposes an additional augmentation control in the incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion structure, which feeds back the error of pitch angular acceleration to mitigate unexpected pitch motion in slow down turn maneuver. We evaluate the stability, flying qualities, and robustness of the proposed control system by performing the frequency-domain linear analysis and the time-domain numerical simulations based on the mathematical model of advanced trainer aircraft. As a result of the evaluation, the additional augmentation control further improves flying qualities and deceleration performance of the aircraft by decreasing over-N-z and N-z-drop characteristics in high-N-z maneuvering in the transonic flight condition as well as ensuring the stability and robustness of the control system against the major uncertainty factors of the aircraft system compared to the existing transonic pitching moment compensation (TPMC) control in which the predefined scheduling for N-z feedback is used.