Design of a Variable Stability Flight Control System

A design objective for variable stability flight control system is to develop a controller of in-flight simulation capability that forces the aircraft being flown to follow the dynamics of other aircraft. This paper presents a model-following variable stability control system (VSS) for in-flight simulation which consists of feedforward and feedback control laws, the aircraft dynamic model to be simulated, and switching and fader logics to reduce the transient effect between two aircraft dynamics. The separate design techniques for feedforward and feedback control law proposals are based on model matching and augmented linear quadratic (LQ) techniques. The system allows pilots to select and engage VSS mode, and when deselected, the aircraft reverts to the baseline flight control system. Both the baseline flight control laws and VSS control laws are computed continuously during flight. Initialization of the state values are necessary to prevent instability, since VSS control laws have integrators and filters in longitudinal, and lateral/directional axes. This paper demonstrates and validates the effectiveness and quality of VSS with F-16 models embedded in T-50 in-flight simulation aircraft.