Visually Augmented Simulator-Based Training of the Manual Landing Flare

Landing is one of the most difficult tasks of flying an aircraft and a majority of the incidents and accidents is related to the final approach and landing phase of flight. Comprehensive training programs are required to prepare (novice) pilots for this last phase of flight, and facilitate the development of robust manual flying skills. Various...

Validating a Human Controller Model for Preview Tracking Tasks: Identification of the Effects of Spatial Occlusion using Eye-Tracking

This paper presents an experimental validation of a recently developed two-point human controller (HC) model for preview tracking tasks. During a human-in-the-loop experiment, subjects tracked identical target signals with zero preview, 1.5 seconds of preview, and two occlusion conditions, blocking either the 0-0.5 s, or 0.35-0.85 s region from...

Human operator identification in the LPV system framework

Implementation of predictor-based subspace methodology for human operator identification in the LPV system framework.

Design, Identification and Implementation of a High-Fidelity Cessna Citation II Flight Simulation Model

As a result of new aviation legislation, from 2019 on all air-carrier pilots are obliged to go through flight simulator-based stall recovery training. For this reason the Control and Simulation division at Delft University of Technology has set up a task force to develop a new methodology for high-fidelity aircraft stall behavior modeling and...

Ecological Interface Design: Training Air Traffic Control Novices in Conflict Detection and Resolution

Ecological Interface Design is an interface design framework developed for process control, and recently also in aviation. An example is the Solution Space Diagram, a visual decision-support tool for air traffic controllers in Conflict Detection and Resolution. Costly Air Traffic Control training with high drop-out rates spurs research to...

Laser-Based Control of Rotary-Wing UAVs

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) present a high technological development rate nowadays. These vehicles can be used to perform dangerous and costly inspection procedures in structures with difficult access instead of human operators, but they still need a close monitoring. This thesis addresses the problem of using exclusively sensors on board...

Fault Detection and Isolation for Linear Dynamical Systems

Safety and reliability of a dynamical system is a concern that have always pursued designers in both academia and industry. Monitoring the health status of a system is even more relevant for safety critical applications, such as chemical and nuclear plants, medicine, transportation, and security systems. The occurrence of abnormal events on...

Complexity Metric Comparison Study for Controller Workload Prediction in 4D Trajectory Management Environments

The future of air traffic management moving to 4D trajectory-based operations will require the development of new airspace sectors to increase aircraft capacity and advanced 'human-centered' decision support tools for future air traffic controllers. To evaluate and aid in the design of future air traffic management systems, complexity metrics...

Coupled Flight Dynamic and Unsteady Aeroservoelastic Modeling and Control of a Flexible Wing Aircraft

Recent developments in airframe design include the increasing application of modern lightweight materials. Airframe designs based on composite materials are able to provide sufficient structural strength at lower mass, but often have decreased structural rigidity. Flight vehicles with relatively flexible structures exhibit more prominent...

Adaptive Incremental Backstepping Flight Control

This thesis deals with the development of Adaptive Incremental Backstepping control laws for a high-performance aircraft model (F-16), in order to make the airplane robustly seek references in roll rate and angle of attack at a constant airspeed while minimizing sideslip. An Incremental Backstepping scheme that relies on estimates of the angular...

System Identification with Multivariate Multiplex Splines

A new type of multivariate spline, based on tensor-product splines, is introduced and applied for function approximation purposes. An algorithm for system identification using these multiplex splines is developed and validated on DelFly II flight tests data.