DESIGN OF AN AIR-TO-AIR AUTOMATIC REFUELING FLIGHT CONTROL-SYSTEM USING QUANTITATIVE FEEDBACK THEORY

Quantitative feedback theory is developed for the design of an automat ic station-keeping flight control system to regulate the position of a n aircraft receiving fuel relative to the tanker aircraft during air-t o-air refueling. A robust flight control system is designed for automa ting the station-keeping task. A simple outer loop feedback control sy stem is developed that achieves stable position regulation in the pres ence of wind gusts and fuel transfer related disturbances. The modelli ng and analysis clearly show the usefulness of QFT in the design of fl ight control systems for aircraft with large structured parametric unc ertainty, Linear and nonlinear simulations are performed to validate t he design. (C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.