Characterization of a flight control computer with rollback recovery

The design and development of a closed-loop system to study and evaluate the performance of a recoverable computer system (RCS) in high intensity electromagnetic environments (EME) is presented. A linearized model of the B737 autoland sequence running in real-time was chosen for this study, with the RCS executing the autopilot control laws and a personal computer (PC) running a model of the B737 aircraft. A Windows-based software package running on the PC was developed to handle the communication of data and commands between the RCS and the flight simulation. A MATLAB simulation model was used to analyze the recovery technique and determine potential performance improvements by proper selection of the recovery mechanism parameters. The performance results of the RCS and characteristics of its upset recovery scheme while exercising flight control laws under ideal conditions as well as in the presence of electromagnetic fields are also discussed.