"INCEPTION has developed a system based on incremental dynamic modelling complemented with model-adaptive and flight envelope protection and prediction capabilities.
Baseline Controller
The new automatic flight controller developed by IST applies the Incremental Backstepping strategy for tracking the attitude of a fixed-wing aircraft. The application of the controller into two different aircraft simulators, the BOEING 747 and the TEKEVER ARS, highlighted the main advantages of the INCEPTION control strategy, including:
Reduced knowledge on the aircraft model in control synthesis.
Versatile structure, easily adaptable for different aircraft.
Increased robustness to changes in the flight condition, requiring a reduced or no scheduling strategy.
Increased safety in the case of actuation failure.
Adaptive Control
Two-Layer Adaptive augmentation for Incremental Backstepping Flight Control, which was capable to tackle possible actuator failures, was proposed and validated using simulation models of two aircraft platforms, the BOEING 747 and the TEKEVER AR5.
The first layer is responsible for detection of the possible anomalies in aircraft behaviour.
In case of an anomaly detection, the algorithm initiates the second-layer estimation determining the individual control effectiveness and provides updated information about the effectiveness matrix to the baseline controller.
The approach improves stability and tracking performance characteristics in case of actuator failure or control effectiveness uncertainty.
Such two-layer structure requires less excitation of the system, increases comfort and tracking performance.
Envelope Protections
Development of a new flight envelope protection concept ""Output Limiting with Backstepping in the Phase Plane"" which was demonstrated as a control limiting, command limiting and virtual control limiting scheme.
Development of a physical reference model which provides the reference dynamics for the control schemes investigated in INCEPTION, allowing the decoupling of the controller design and design of the handling qualities.
Relevant parts of the design was verified in a piloted simulator campaign in a Level 6 flight simulator, in flight test of a small UAV and in extensive simulation testing with both a 747 and TEKEVER AR5 UAV.
Inertial Measurement Unit
Typically, large aircraft flight controls require fiber optical gyroscopes (FOG) (to sense angular rates), and quartz servo technology (to sense accelerations), which are either heavy or expensive. MSS developed a MEMS-based IMU that satisfies the requirements of large UAVs (>150 kg) and sensor-based flight control.
Field Tests
Upon delivery of all modules and successful integration process, the controller has gone through exhaustive Software & Hardware testing and was flown in TEKEVER prototype aircraft."
