Pilot-in-the-loop evaluation of fault-tolerant flight control systems

Abstract Human operator interaction with aircraft flight control systems can have a significant impact on the overall system's safety and efficiency. A new flight control system, whether it is operated manually by the pilot or has the pilot monitoring automatic operation, must therefore be tested with a human operator in the loop before it can be deployed. This paper describes a flight simulator campaign to evaluate several fault-tolerant flight control systems under realistic failure conditions. It covers the online implementation of the controllers, the configuration of the simulator, and the evaluation scenarios and metrics. Some typical results are also included.