On-line approximation based aircraft longitudinal control

This document derives stable on-line approximation based control algorithms for application to the longitudinal control (gamma, alpha, Q, V) for an uninhabited combat air vehicle (UCAV). The objectives of the control approach are to stabilize the aircraft dynamics and achieve accurate command tracking in the presence of significant nonlinear model error. This error could be due to decreased modeling effort during the design process or the result of events that occur during the vehicle flight (i.e., battle damage). Lyapunov stability analysis and simulation demonstrations of the achieved performance are included.