Control of a High Performance Aircraft with Unacceptable Zerodynamics

Nonlinear control techniques such as sliding control cannot be directly applied to control the dynamics of many high performance aircraft such as the AFTI-FI6, as they exhibit unacceptable zerodynamics. Traditionally, approximations have been resorted to, to overcome this problem. In this paper, we apply an "output redefinition" technique to systematically overcome the serodynamics problem, resulting in precise, local, tracking. Computer simulations of high g-commands illustrate that while acceptable tracking can be achieved through the output-redefinition technique, standard nonlinear techniques fail.