Input/output conditioning of robust integrated flight and propulsion controller

We describe the application of a conditioning scheme to a linear integrated flight and propulsion control system for an experimental vertical/short ta keoff and landing aircraft configuration in the transition (approach to hov er) region of the flight envelope is presented. The proposed scheme guarant ees satisfaction of limits on safety critical engine variables by using out put conditioning to back off pilot demands in the event of a limit being en countered. Bounded-input/bounded-output stability results are presented for the resulting closed-loop system. At the plant input, an actuator lineariz ation scheme is designed to minimize performance degradation due to backlas h dynamics in the aircraft's thrust vectoring nozzles. The conditioning sch eme also provides a mechanism for explicitly prioritizing requirements on f light-path angle over velocity in the case of engine performance limitation s being reached. Performance and safety improvements due to the addition of the controller conditioning scheme are demonstrated in nonlinear simulatio n.