A Flight Control System for Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

The program adaptation of the controller for the flight control system (FCS) of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is considered. Linearized flight dynamic models depend mainly on the true airspeed of the UAV, which is measured by the onboard air data system. This enables its use for program adaptation of the FCS over the full range of altitudes and velocities, which define the flight operating range. FCS with program adaptation, based on static feedback (SF), is selected. The SF parameters for every sub-range of the true airspeed are determined using the linear matrix inequality approach in the case of discrete systems for synthesis of a suboptimal robust H∞-controller. The use of the Lagrange interpolation between true airspeed sub-ranges provides continuous adaptation. The efficiency of the proposed approach is shown against an example of the heading stabilization system. © 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.