Design of a flight control system for a highly maneuverable aircraft using µ synthesis

This paper presents a methodology for the design of longitudinal controllers for high performance aircraft, operating over large ranges of angle of attack. The technique used for controller design is structured singular value or µ synthesis. The controller is designed to minimize the weighted H_∞ norm of the error between the aircraft response and the desired handling quality specifications without saturating the control actuators. The µ synthesis procedure ensures that the stability and performance of the aircraft is robust to parameter variations and modeling uncertainties included in the design model. Nonlinear simulations demonstrate that the controller satisfies handling quality requirements and provides excellent tracking of pilot inputs over a wide range of transient angles of attack and Mach number.