Design, implementation and flight-test of incremental backstepping flight control laws
Wim Van Ekeren (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR))
Gertjan Looye (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR))
Richard Kuchar (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR))
Qiping Chu (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
Erik Jan Van Kampen (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR))
More Info
expand_more
Abstract
This paper presents the design and implementation of incremental backstepping (IBS) flight control laws for the attitude control and stabilization on a fixed-wing aircraft. The design consists of multiple functionalities such as command-filtered backstepping, angle of attack control and body attitude control, that are based around an incremental control inner loop that tracks the angular rates of the aircraft. The results include flight data of an integrated IBS design that validate simulation results of control laws shown previously in literature. The results show that it is possible to implement robust nonlinear flight control laws that are easy to tune and require only little knowledge about the system dynamics parameters.