Application of evolutionary computation to aircraft control law design

Discusses an evolutionary computation (EC) approach to developing control laws for aircraft flight control systems. A generic control law structure is defined that incorporates the basic control elements that are normally used in flight control systems. A generic gain schedule algorithm is also defined that can be used to determine the gains for the control structure based on the flight conditions. These two elements are then integrated with a multiple-flight-condition linear aircraft model and an EC algorithm that searches for an optimum control law that is valid throughout the flight envelope. This approach eliminates the normal manual iterative development methodology that is used to develop aircraft control laws. It also provides a rapid prototyping capability that allows an existing flight control design to be customized for a different aircraft. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach and compare the convergence speeds of various EC variations.