A design for fuzzy control for high performance aircraft

A fuzzy control scheme is proposed to design a high-angle-of-attack flight system for a super-maneuverable version of an F-18 aircraft. The knowledge of both a proportional, integral, plus derivative control and a sliding control is combined into the fuzzy control which addresses both the highly nonlinear aerodynamic characteristics of elevators and the control limit of thrust vectoring nozzle. A simple gain scheduling method with multi layered fuzzy rules is adopted to obtain an appropriate blend of elevator and thrust vectoring commands in the wide operating range. Thus the fuzzy logic can afford the control engineer a flexible means of deriving effective control laws in the nonlinear flight regime because its hybrid structure meets both given robustness and performance requirements.