Exploiting an intelligent fuzzy-PID system in nonlinear aircraft pitch control

The aim of this paper is to present an evaluation of multiple aircraft pitch controllers during motion in the air. Three controllers: PID, fuzzy, and fuzzy-PID were designed. The Mamdani fuzzy reasoning model has been used in designing the Fuzzy controller and tuning the parameters of the fuzzy-PID controller. First, the controller plant was modeled by building a nonlinear time variant mathematical model, which reflects all the parameters that affect the aircraft dynamics in order to describe its motion. The simulated experiments have been carried out on the resulted aircraft model to define the problems to be taken in consideration, and dependencies were found in the model variables and the inertia; in addition to, non-linearity and time variance of the models equations, which require simplifying the model. The developed model describes the aircraft motion and its real dynamics accurately compared to other proposed models that allow studying and evaluating some pitch controllers beginning from traditional controller systems, fuzzy controller systems and hybrid controller systems. The fuzzy-PID controller offered the best response by mixing the features of both the fuzzy and the PID controllers, and the ability to adapt with the fuzzy rules.