Nonlinear Control Allocation for Interacting Control Effectors using Bivariate Taylor Expansion

Nonlinear control allocation methods often require a locally affine approximation of the polynomial models of control effectors at every sampling instant. Traditionally, this locally affine approximation is obtained under the assumption that control effector models are the separable functions, which implies that there exists no control interaction or coupling between the effectors. In this work, a nonlinear control allocation method is presented for the interacting control effectors of a tailless flying wing aircraft. The method uses Bivariate Taylor Expansion to compute locally affine approximation of polynomial effector models which are non-separable functions due to presence of the control interaction. Simulation results show that the proposed method gives good control allocation performance as compared to the traditional method.