Robust decentralized control design for aircraft engines: A fractional type

Abstract A new decentralized control for aircraft engines is proposed. In the proposed control approach, aircraft engines are considered as uncertain large-scale systems composed of interconnected uncertain subsystems. For each subsystem, the time-varying uncertainty, including parameter disturbances and interconnections in/between subsystems, is depicted by a class of general nonlinear functions. A fractional robust decentralized control with two parts, the nominal one and the fractional one, is presented. The nominal control guarantees the asymptotical stability of the engine system without uncertainty. The fractional part aims at overcoming the influences of uncertainty. Compared to the previous studies, the presented control provides not only an extra flexibility for the system performance tuning by the fraction-type gain but also a facility for the control input calculation. The proposed control approach is applied to a turbofan engine with two subsystems. The computer simulation shows that, in the flight envelope, the fractional control not only guarantees the closed-loop system uniform boundedness and ultimate uniform boundedness but also shows good economy.