This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE ICCSP 2015 conference.

Performance Evaluation of Stability Augmentation

System by various Flight Control Laws
K David

Solomon Raj, Mannem Siva Mohan

The general structure of an SAS which defines the four
principal elements namely aircraft dynamics, actuator
dynamics, sensor dynamics and flight controller are shown in
Fig 1. When the SAS is switched off, the pilot can directly
control the aircraft by moving the appropriate control
surfaces and flight controller is not then active when the SAS
switched on, the control surface is driven by the actuator
which is controlled by the flight controller.

Abstract- An insight into the knowledge of Automatic

Flight Control Systems (AFCSs) gives an understanding of the
basic problem of controlling the aircraft's flight, and enhance
its ability to assess the solutions to the problems which are
generally

proposed.

Before

understanding

automatic

controlling of an aircraft, it is essential to know how an aircraft

will respond dynamically to a deliberate movement of its
control surfaces, or to an encounter with unexpected and
random disturbances of the air through which it is flying. With

In AFCS studies, the primary concern is to enhance the

flying qualities of the aircraft by the control action of the
feedback control system whereas the command inputs are
usually considered only secondary. Upon the control action
by negative feedback control the disturbance upon the
aircraft motion are suppressed. In spite of physical sizing of
aerodynamic surfaces certain desirable values of the non
dimensional
stability
derivatives
Cm , Cm , Cn(J' CnrCn and CZ(J
can
be
achieved
more
a

these thoughts this paper presents a reasonable self-contained

account of the most significant method of designing linear
control systems which find universal use in AFCSs. This paper
being

firmly

based

upon

time-domain

methods,

presents

modern methods of control theory, particularly the use of state

equations which is a natural and effective technique and
harmonizes with the mathematical description of the aircraft
dynamics that are most completely and conveniently expressed
in terms of a state and an output equation. Also this paper
relate to particular modes of an AFCS, being concerned with
the reference aircraft CHARLIE (a very large, four-engine
passenger

jet

aircraft)

at

different

flight

PilotsCOIIUII .. d
Sip"

Trim Caml!llld
IlIIpal

effectively using automatic control. Section II deals with the

Literature Survey of the work. The disturbances that
affecting the aircraft motion is given in section III.

stability augmentation system which has been implemented for

conditions.

SIMULINK is proposed to implement SAS's as they are

important to form the innermost loop of an integrated AFCS.

Index Terms- Aircraft dynamics, Automatic Flight Control

System (AFCS), Stability Augmentation System (SAS).

I.

INTRODUCTION

)'tomm

In the year 1950, the term "Stability Augmentation

System" (SAS) came into use in USA where at that time an
aircraft manufacturer, Northrop, was famous for its "Flying
Wing" aircraft. It was found at a very outset, such designs
produce most unsatisfactory flying qualities in the absence of
any suitable control action being applied by an Automatic
Flight Control System (AFCS). In order to increase the
inherent flying qualities a stability augmenter was developed.
Although ever since these systems are called Stability
Augmentation System, the main purpose of SAS is to
enhance the values of a number of specific stability
derivatives of an aircraft by means of negative feedback
control. Any change pertaining to the flying qualities of an
aircraft can be affected by means of alteration in these
stability derivatives.

Possiblc:,ygllllfr-om
&Uidatl(:I!'S)'SI

Fig. 1. Stability augmentation system

A. Actuator Dynamics

Generally electrohydraulic actuators are used in the

combat and the transport aircraft. Sometimes electric
actuators are used in general aviation aircraft. Such
actuating systems have their own dynamic characteristics
that can affect the performance of the closed loop SAS. The
actuator dynamics can be considered to be a very simple
transfer function given by
(1)

K David Solomon Raj and Mannem Siva Mohan are with Dept. of
Avionics, Institute of Science and Technology, lawaharlal Nehru
Technological University, Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, India.
(e-mail: k. rajusolomon@gmail. com.sivamohanmannem@gmail.com).

978-1-4799-8081-9/15/$31.00

V,.
:k Voltagll!!
udbtu

Where 'K' is taken as the gain of actuator which is

usually in deg/volt. For a large aircraft the actuator must

2015 IEEE

0694

This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE ICCSP 2015 conference.

provide large hinge moments for control, consequently the

transfer function usually assumed in this situation is
8(s)
8c(s)

_
(s+.1.)

proposed skyline-detection algorithm to achieve automatic

control of flight stability. In the dynamic tests, straight and
circular flights are used to verify lateral and longitudinal
stability for the proposed flight control system. The
experimental results demonstrate the perfonnance and
robustness of the algorithm and the feasibility and potential
of a low-cost vision-only flight control system.
[6] A case study of an open-source low-cost
reconfigurable autopilot design for small unmanned aerial
vehicles (Remotely operated Aerial Model Autopilot
(RAMA) control system) is presented in this paper. A novel
distributed hierarchical architecture, implementing graceful
degradation and run-time system reconfiguration techniques,
is introduced. RAMA is capable of reconfiguration in case
of emergency, meaning that the most critical functions,
needed for vehicle controllability, can be taken over by
another node of the system if the primary node fails,
sacrificing some noncritical functionality. RAMA also
utilizes a novel control scheme and controller
implementation.
[7] Unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) are useful for
observing and planning rescue activities in dangerous areas
such as those affected by volcanoes, earthquakes and fires.
One such an airplane is a Kite plane that has a large delta
shaped main wing that is easily disturbed by the wind,
which was minimized by utilizing trim flight with drift. The
proposed AFCS for autonomous trajectory following with a
wind disturbance include fuzzy logic controllers, speed
controllers, a wind disturbance attenuation block and low
level feedback controller. And this proposed AFCS
succeeded in following the desired trajectory, under the
wind disturbances.

(2)

B. Sensor Dynamics

Every sensor used in an AFCS is a transducer. The main

purpose is to measure motion variables and to produce
output voltage or currents which correspond to these motion
variables. For SAS's, the most commonly employed sensors
are gyroscopes and accelerometers. A sensor is frequently
represented by its sensitivity, i.e. Ks.
II.

BACKGROUND WORK

[1] The problem considered in this article is the design

and evaluation of the robust control law for a small
helicopter, which allows for vertical, pitch, and travel rate
dynamics tracking reference trajectories. The article is
mainly dedicated to robust control aspects of helicopters,
where the evaluation of the Hoo control is addressed to
demonstrate the effectiveness of the performance and the
robustness of the proposed control law.
[2] In this article, decentralized sliding mode controllers
that enable a connected and leaderless swarm of unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs) to reach a consensus in altitude and
heading angle are presented. In addition, sliding mode
control-based autopilot designs to control those states for
which consensus is not required are also presented. By
equipping each UAV with this combination of controllers, it
can autonomously decide on being a member of the swarm
or fly independently. The controllers are designed using a
coupled nonlinear dynamic model, derived for the YF -22
aircraft, where the aerodynamic forces and moments are
linear functions of the states and inputs.
[3] The work presented here is concerned with the
robust flight control problem for the longitudinal dynamics
of generic air breathing hypersonic vehicles (AHVs) under
mismatched disturbances via a nonlinear-disturbance
observer-based control (NDOBC) method. Compared with
other robust flight control method for AHV, the proposed
method obtains not only promising robustness and
disturbance rejection performance but also the property of
nominal performance recovery.
[4] This article considers the practical problems of the
control law implementation and system integration using
existing control technology. It discusses the altitude control
of a flapping-wing micro aerial vehicle (MAV) that
describes a control law for stabilizing the vertical motion of
a flapping-wing MAV and developed a system architecture
that is potentially beneficial in realizing the autonomous
flight of flapping-wing MAVs fewer than 10 g.
[5] This paper is on a vision-based flight control system
that uses a skyline-detection algorithm is developed for
application to small unmanned aerial vehicles. The skyline
detection algorithm can detect straight or uneven skylines.
The system integrates a remote controller, a remotely
controlled
airplane,
a
camera,
a
wireless
transmitter/receiver, a ground control computer, and the

III.

DISTURBANCES AFFECTING AIRCRAFT

MOTION

There are several factors which affect the motion of an

automatically controlled aircraft. They are Maneuver
commands, Atmospheric effects, Noise from the system and
noise from the sensors. Maneuver commands are applied by
human pilot or a guidance commands, navigation or a
weapon systems which are deliberate inputs to the AFCS
and intended to change the aircraft path. Also the motion of
an aircraft is erratic when the air through which an aircraft
flies is never still. Microburst, a severe downburst of air is
another violent atmospheric phenomenon which can be
encountered in flight. Atmospheric turbulence is a stationary
random process and its statistical properties are independent
of time. Wind shear is another rapid change of airflow
which could be hazardous particularly to aircraft lying at
low altitudes and at low speeds. In the midst of all these
disturbances the primary concern of an AFCS is to suppress
as much as possible the unwanted effects of such
disturbances.

0695

This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE ICCSP 2015 conference.

IV.

STATE AND OUTPUT EQUATIONS

A state equation is a first order vector differential

equation and it is a natural form to represent aircraft
equations of motion. Its most general expression is
x = Ax + Bu
(3)
Where x E Rn is the state vector, u E Rm is the control
vector. If the concern is with the motion variables other than
those chosen as state variables, then an output equation is
wanted. The output equation is merely an algebraic equation
which depends solely upon state vector, and, occasionally,
upon the control vector also. Its customary form of
expression is:
y = ex + Du
(4)

V.

LONGITUDINAL CONTROL

The block diagram of a typical conventional pitch rate

SAS is shown in Fig 2. Here ' Mq' is the stability derivative
which the system try to augment, thereby increasing the
damping ratio of the short period mode. Also a rate gyro is
used to measure the pitch rate 'q' which is treated as
feedback signal. The typical value for the sensitivity Krg of a
rate gyro is 100 mVldeg (5.73 VI rad). With suitable choice
of Keont the problem is solved by causing the damping ratio
of short period to be increased.

And if the aircraft is being controlled only by means of

elevator deflection, OE such that its control vector is defined
as
u OE
(6)
Then from the Eq. (1) it can be written as

Me

0
0

A. Pitch Rate SAS

(5)

-gc sya
-gsmYa

(12)

Using equations from (1) to (10) the next two sections

has been implemented for the reference aircraft chosen in
this paper. The reference aircraft is a CHARLIE aircraft
which is a very large four engine passenger aircraft. And the
stability derivatives for CHARLIE aircraft have been taken
from [8] for all flight conditions to implement all the
Stability Augmentation System in both Longitudinal and
Lateral motion.

If the state vector is defmed as, say:

[fl

LOA
NOA ,
0
0

A. Aircraft Equations ofLongitudinal Motion

YOR
LOR ,
NOR ,

Aircn{,
Dynamics

(7)

(8)

Fig. 2. Pitch rate stability augmentation system

For lateral motion the control motion may be defined as

u

If the state vector,

x is

[1;]

The transfer function representing the aircraft dynamics

shown in above Fig corresponds to aircraft CHARLIE at
flight condition 4. Also the actuator dynamics is assumed to
be represented by a fixed gain Kservo a value of 1 degivolt.
The response of an uncontrolled aircraft corresponding to an
initial disturbance in its angle of attack of 1 a is shown below

(9)

(10)

Ua

-gcosYa

defined as

---!

Then the state equation is given by Eq. 1 where

Yv 0
Lv' Lp'
Nv' Np'
0
0

1
0

LR'
Nr'

tanYa
secYa

+
+

0
0
1

0
0
0

(11)

Fig. 3(a)

0696

This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE ICCSP 2015 conference.

--

I
I

[
'---i!]

I
.

Short period : ,13,,14

- 0. 0 07 jO.025

-5. 0 j8.1537

Response of an initial angle of attack of the controlled

aircraft using different control laws are shown in Fig. 5

- +-

t-

: ,11>,12

Phugoid

One of the straight forward solutions is using the Linear

Quadratic Problem (LQP) solution which depends upon the
choice of weighting matrices, Q and G. For the choice of Q
and G namely

Fig. 3(b)

diag[O.Ol

0. 0 1

0.5

G = [2.5] And
feedback matrix is obtained

Fig. 3. (a) Response of CHARLlE-3 to a(O) = 1'.

(b) Pitch rate response of CHARLIE-3.

diag[- 0. 056

K =

To increase the damping ratio to 0.6 and short period

frequency not less than 6 rad/s an appropriate choice of Keant
must be achieved. The control law of SAS is therefore

0.2]

by

0. 046

(19)

solving

2.4

the resultant
(20)

18. 144]

Using the optimal control law results in the controlled

aircraft having roots of:
: ,11>,12

DE

= Kqq

(13)

Phugoid

DE

= KA Krg Kserv Keant q

(14)

Short period : ,13,,14

- 0. 0934 jO. 09 15

-28. 134 j27.556

From Kq = 0.36 Keant can be found to be 0.283. Another

method to analyze the stability of the closed loop system is
by representing a basic uncontrolled system as shown in Fig.
4

)I

__8_
E __

Airaart Dynamics

'X __
= AX __
+ BO E__

__

Fig. 4. Open loop control system

TIme's!

and the problem is merely to determine the feedback gain

matrix' K' in the control law.

Fig. 5. Pitch rate response for pole placement system

The closed response to an initial angle of attack of 1 is

shown in Fig. 6. Here it can be observed how pitch rate have
been penalized i.e. the peak value at O.2s is only - 0. 0 13
compared to a peak value of - 0. 07 at 0.3s for the
uncontrolled aircraft. However the long drooping response
which has not settled by 5 sec and which has arisen because
of the dominant effect of pitch attitude feedback can only be
reduced by penalizing the use of the elevator less heavily and
allowing greater peak values of 'q'. Therefore other choices
of Q and G matrices are needed.

(15)
Using pole placement technique if the desired closed loop
poles are chosen to be
: ,11' ,12

Phugoid

Short period : ,13,,14

- 0. 0 04 jO. 04

-5. 0 j8. 0

Therefore the required matrix of feedback gains can be

determined as
K =

[- 0. 0 02

0. 0 023

0.3824

- 0. 05]

For an arbitrary choice of weighted matrices

(16)

If we consider feedback control represented by

(17)
: ,11' ,12

Short period : ,13' ,14

- 0. 0 075 jO. 04

-4.9 j3.3

K =

If however the gain matrix is approximated to

K =

[0

0. 0 023

0.3824

0]

diag[ 0. 0 03

0. 05

0.4

0.2];

[5]

The corresponding gain matrix 'K' was

Which produces desired closed loop pole:

Phugoid

(18)

The closed loop poles corresponding to short period

mode are not being greatly affected

0697

[ 0. 0 184

- 0.0855

-2.9 05

- 14. 035]

(21)

This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE ICCSP 2015 conference.

Here the dynamic response of the closed-loop system to

an initial change of angle of attack of 1 deg/sec is shown in
Fig. 8 when Kq is chosen to be 0.5. However the use of this
phase advance network has added damping to the short
period response but generally, phase advance network tend
to make closed loop system perfonn less well in the
presence of sensor noise.

C. Effect of additional feedback terms

In order to achieve required handling qualities an

addition feedback term is included in the feedback controller
law used in pitch rate SAS based upon the normal
acceleration measured at the Cg . Thus

Fig. 6. Pitch rate response for pole placement system

B.

Phase Advance Compensation

One common fonn of dynamic control law used for pitch

rate SAS is defined by
DEc = KqGc(s)q(s)
(22)

Controller &
Actulll Ol'

Aircraft
Dynamics

Fig. 7 represents the method of phase advance

compensation techniques applied in pitch rate SAS. Since
the characteristic equation and responses to initial
conditions and to atmospheric turbulence are identical either
fonn of Fig. 7a or 7b may be used. In the event of SAS
failure Fig. 7 is adopted whenever the aircraft has manual
reversion: it permits a direct input, Pc from the primary
flight control. The transfer function of phase advance
network to introduce safely is chosen to be

Gc(s)

p,(.)

(1+5)

(23)

(1+50.1)

Accelerometer

Fig. 9. Pitch rate and acceleration feedback SAS

Fig. 9 shows the block diagram of such technique. Here

one of the practical alternatives is to measure pitch rate and
nonnal acceleration which are relatively straight forward to
measure using rate gyros and accelerometers located at
aircrafts Cg . By comparing with Fig of previous dynamic
response acceleration feedback is generally considered to
'stiffen' the system. The respond to initial angle of attack of
1 deg is shown in Fig where Kq = 0. 1753 and Kaz =
- 0. 0 12. The Eq.ll is also called as 'blended feedback
control' which usually used to achieve, as nearly as possible,
invariant flying qualities throughout the flight envelope of
the aircraft. One of the advantage is at low dynamic pressure
the controlled aircraft is arranged to behave as if it were a
pure pitch rate SAS and at high dynamic pressures, the
system behaves more noticeably as a normal acceleration
control system. Such blended feedback systems can mask the
natural ability of the aircraft to provide a 'stall warning'.
This type of control system tries to maintain good flying
qualities until close to the point of the aircrafts stalling. Here
two responses are presented. The transient response of
CHARLIE aircraft for all four flight conditions using the
same fixed pitch rate feedback control law and with fixed
blended feedback control and they are shown in Fig. 10

Aitcrafl
Oyn-ucs

Airmit
DyalDlia.

Fig. 7. Pitch rate SAS. (a) Series Compensation.

(b) Compensation in feedback.

:r
1 _(0). ,. I
-

--,

!
"

...

t--+-

I
...

q(s)

RaieGyro

AFCS
opend:ion.al

......

(24)

...

-+._.

.... ,.

Fig.8. Pitch rate response with phase advance compensation

0698

This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE ICCSP 2015 conference.

/: 'J

t---- V I
"\\
/ ;/
\\"- f/;
\\ //
vi

11

__ ,

--

In the above fig the aircraft dynamics correspond to

CHARLIE aircraft for flight condition 4 obtained from two
degree of freedom of approximation is given by

b:=

--b::::-=

-r- --

res)
ORCS)

__ ,

(25)

From the block diagram the sensitivity of rate gyro used

in the feedback is 0.1 v/deg. Also the controller gain Kc has
to be chosen to ensure that the closed loop response results
in Dutch roll motion which corresponds to acceptable flying
qualities. It is observed that the damping ratio is less than
0.1 which is too small to result in acceptable Dutch roll
motion. The objective of using Yaw damper is to ensure that
the damping ratio of the resulting controller motion is much
larger say about 0.4 or 0.5.

I
I
..... -. 1

Fig shows the dynamic response of the uncontrolled

aircraft CHARLIE for flight condition 4 to an initial
disturbance of yaw rate of 1 deg/sec and the response of the
same uncontrolled aircraft to an initial disturbance in the roll
rate of 1 deg/sec is shown in Fig. 12 It can be inferred that
the oscillatory response was predominant in all the motion
variables shown in fig.12a whereas in fig.12b the absence of
such oscillatory motion is shown because the mode which
was disturbed initially is the roll mode and there is no
coupling of the Dutch roll into the rolling subsidence mode.
This kind of observation is helpful for deriving the transfer
function for r(s)jor(s) and later P(S)jOA(S).

n.."",

Fig. 10. Blended control - pitch rate response for four flight conditions.

From the above two analysis, we can observe that the

invariant response was effectively provided by blended
control law that would ensure aircrafts handling qualities to
remain acceptable as the aircraft traversed the region
confined in the flight envelope.
VI.

-0.442
(52+0.195+1.04)

LATERAL CONTROL

There are three types of SAS's that are commonly used

for Lateral Motion: Yaw damper, Roll damper and Spiral
mode SAS. Here in this analysis of lateral control, the three
SAS's mentioned involve the use of only one control surface,
either the ailerons or the rudder according to the function of
SAS.
A.

Yaw Damper

Few aircrafts possess a degree of inherent damping of

Dutch roll motion which are enough to satisfy the handling
qualities. Whenever there is a usage of rudder, the lack in its
functionality causes oscillatory yawing motion, with some
coupling into the rolling motion the significance of which
depends upon the relative size of the stability derivative L/ .
Here the use of an SAS to artificially increase the damping
by augmenting N/, is universal and a block diagram of such
a yaw damper using proportional feedback is shown in Fig.
11

11me(s)
Fig. 12(a)

J
b

I
1

Rudder

Actuator

r--

r(s)
Controller

1\
\.

"

m-r--....
'--:!:

I.--

------

---

Rate Gyro

8.. /
V ..--"' 1
r--l
f--

-1<1

Fig. 12(b). Response of uncontrolled aircraft: (a) to reO)

p(O) 1 deg/sec

I deg/sec & (b)

Fig.ll. Yaw damper block diagram

Fig. 13 shows the response of the yaw damper to the

same initial disturbance of 1 deglsec but for different

0699

This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE ICCSP 2015 conference.

controller gain values Kc. At Kc = 15 v Iv result in the most

rapid response but one with the lowest damping. Increasing
Kc to 196.875 results in instability of yaw damper. At Kc=lO
provides a well damped and reasonably good response.

Rudder
Actuator
res)

Washout
network

Controll

Rate Gyro

Fig. 15. Yaw damper with wash-out in feedback

Fig. 15 shows the representation of such washout filter.
Here the values of Kc and Two obtained from conventional
control methods are taken as 100 and 1 respectively.
TIme(s)

Also Fig. 14 shows the effect of the dynamics of the

actuator upon the performance of the yaw damper with
Kc=lO but with the transfer function for the actuator being
replaced by

(26)

,-

/'

"!"

- -[- -,-

T
I

K -

'1

+
... -

o.2lt I

,---

t
Tlme(s)

1 T
1r -11- -

Fig. 13. Response of yaw damper for various values of Kc

-1

T
i

T1mel

Fig. 16. Response of yaw damper with wash-out

-

-,.-

-,i

1'!,

Fig. 16 shows the step response for yaw damper with

wash-out circuit to a command yaw rate of 1 deg/sec for a
range of values of controller gain. Also it can be noticed
feedback does not oppose the command input in the steady
state. For designing such yaw damper care must be taken to
choose the value of time constant of the wash-out network.
If the Two is too short yaw damper is having less time to act
and is less effective. If it is too long, stability problems
arise.

-1
I
I

Fig. 14. Response of yaw damper with second order rudder actuator

B. Roll Rate Damper

From the above simulation result the response has been

slowed down and the damping has been reduced. However
the above Fig. 14 of yaw damper does not completely
remove the effect of the initial disturbance in yaw rate since
there are non-zero steady values. One of the disadvantage
with this system is it tends to oppose any change in yaw rate
even it has been commanded in order to change the
aircraft's heading. In order to overcome such drawback, the
signal proportional to the yaw rate, being used as a feedback
signal to the controller. This feedback signal is first passed
through a washout network for the purpose of differentiating
the signal from the yaw rate gyroscope. A washout circuit is
easily synthesized by means of active electronic
components, such as operational amplifiers.

Roll rate damper is usually operated when the aircraft

roll performance is considerably inadequate which means
that the time to obtain a desired value of roll rate is too long.
'
Here Lp is the stability derivative where the roll rate
damper augments to reduce the response time of aircraft. In
this roll rate damper the actuator dynamics of aileron and
the associated rate gyroscope are having a gain Kact and the
rate gyro sensitivity of Kp. Fig. 17 shows the block diagram
of a typical roll rate damper.
Aileron
Actuator

Pees) A

Aircraft

Dynamics

p(s)

0
Controller

Rot_Gyro

Vc(s)

Fig. 17. Roll rate damper block diagram.

0700

This full-text paper was peer-reviewed and accepted to be presented at the IEEE ICCSP 2015 conference.

From the block diagram it can be inferred that the

aircraft dynamics is represented by the transfer function
' '
relating the roll rate p and the aileron deflection 'DA'. Also
it can be shown that

KactLoA'
pes)
Pees) - [s+T]+KactKpKeLoA'

i.e

pes)
Pees)

l+sT

r"

nme(s,J

Fig. 19. Roll damper and uncontrolled roll rate response

VII.

CONCLUSION

This paper has been dealt with Stability Augmentation

Systems which are closed loop control systems implemented
on aircraft to remedy those deficiencies in flying qualities
which are due to basic aerodynamic or geometric
inadequacies in the aircraft. Feedback control is used to
augment some particular derivatives, thereby improving the
parameters which directly govern the flying qualities. Both
lateral and longitudinal motion systems have been
considered and the most common types of SASs, such as
pitch, roll and yaw damper are treated. The performance
evaluation of such SASs has been discussed and the effects
on the closed loop performance of actuator and sensor
dynamics have also been presented in this paper.

(30)
KactKpKcLI5A

(27 )

(29)

f=--'

(26)

(28)

where

-' -' '--

(31)

The Fig. 18 shows the roll rate response of CHARLIE

for flight condition 4 to an initial disturbance in roll rate of 1
deglsec.

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Electronics ,VoI.58,No.3, March 201 1

[7]

Makoto Kumon, Member, IEEE, Yuya Udo, Hajime Michihira,

Masanobu Nagata, Ikuro Mizumoto,
Member, IEEE, and
Zenta Iwai, "Autopilot System for Kiteplane",lEEEIASME
Transactions
on
Mechatronics,
Vol.
I I , No.
5,
October 2006

[8]

Donald McLean, Automatic

International (UK) Ltd, 1990.

Fig. 18. Roll rate response for CHARLTE-4.

Also Fig. 19 shows the corresponding roll rate response

obtained from a roll rate damper with a value of controller
gain of 30 along with the roll rate response curve of the
uncontrolled aircraft dynamics and Kact and Kp taken as 1
and 0.1. Here the settling time for basic aircraft is lO s; for
the roll rate damper the response is an order faster.

0 7 01

Flight Control Systems.

Prentice Hall