High precision weapon control system design

Several control design methodologies are applied to a weapon testbed to assess their applicability and to characterize the achievable performance of the gun-turret system in precision control. Applications of robust control design methods to the gun-turret system lead to a characterization of the achievable performance. Nonlinear feedforward servomechanism theory is adapted to account for hard nonlinearities and backlash. A preload scheme is devised, using this theory to increase the allowable level of backlash. A fuzzy logic controller improves the transient response and steady-state error of the gun-turret control system. This integration of robust, nonlinear, and adaptive controls is highly promising. An integrated fuzzy-robust controller is developed to achieve a rapid transient response (due to the correction from the fuzzy controller) and robustness (inherent in the robust design).<>