An altitude-hold/vertical speed integrated control method

Considering the classical methods for altitude control which are based on the change of different modes have some problems, such as the oscillation and even divergence of controlled quantity output. This paper proposes an altitude-hold/vertical speed integrated control method which can achieve both altitude-hold and altitude change. The main idea of the new method is to take the exponential function as the prototype function which fits in with the variation rule of flight altitude. Since vertical speed is the derivate of the altitude, the relationship between current altitude and vertical speed can be deduced easily. Then the relationship is introduced into vertical speed controller to achieve integrated control. Finally, the simulation is done on A320 flight simulation platform. And the results indicate that the designed control method is non-oscillation and high-precision for altitude control.