Minimization of Degradation Through Prognosis Based Control for a Damaged Aircraft Actuator

In this paper we present a formulation of an aircraft systems model for prognosis-based control. An aircraft systems model with hydraulic actuators for control surfaces is developed in SIMULINK and is connected with a model for predicting degradation of an actuator. An LQR based feedback control is employed to compensate for changes in the plant dynamics and a feedforward controller is used to achieve better performance through set-point tracking, while taking into account the current actuator degradation rate. The advantage of the combination of feedback and feedforward control strategies is then demonstrated through reduction of degradation of the actuator while achieving a minimum loss of performance using constrained optimization.Copyright © 2009 by ASME