Design of Deterministic Self-Tuning Regulators for the Pitch Angle of an Aircraft

This paper addresses the adaptive control problem of an aircraft and focuses on the task that the pitch angle of the aircraft is required to follow the desired path. Considering the elevator deflection angle as the input and the pitch angle as the output, a mathematical model of the aircraft is derived to specify the structure of the system. Three diverse deterministic self-tuning regulators are designed using direct and indirect methods. Assuming that the system is unknown, recursive least squares method is applied to estimate parameters of the system or that of the controller’s. Diophantine equation and minimum degree pole-placement methods are utilized to calculate the control law. Not only do simulation results clearly demonstrate the privilege and effectiveness of the proposed approaches, but also comprehensive discussion is presented to distinguish advantages and disadvantages of them.