Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

2004

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Committee Chair

Marcello Napolitano.

Abstract

This dissertation describes the design, development, and flight testing of a Neural Network (NN) based Fault Tolerant Flight Control System (FTFCS) with the ability to accommodate for actuator failures. The goal of this research was to demonstrate the ability of a specific set of control laws to maintain aircraft handling qualities in the presence of failures in the actuator channels. In this study, two-failure scenarios have been investigated: aileron failure (locking of the right aileron at a trim position) and elevator failure (locking of the right elevator at a trim position). A fleet of WVU YF-22 research aircraft test-beds were manufactured and instrumented for developing and testing of flight control software. An on-board payload with a PC-104 format computer system, sensors, and custom made circuit boards were designed and developed for these aircraft test-beds. The fault tolerant flight control systems for this study were designed to recover the aircraft with damaged actuators. On-board real-time data acquisition and control software was developed to achieve the Actuator Failure Accommodation (AFA) flight demonstration.;For the purposes of this research, control laws were required to be adaptive to changing aircraft dynamics during a failure scenario. On-line learning NNs---with their non-linearity and learning abilities---were used in the design of the on-board aircraft control scheme. The on-line training reduced the criticality of an extensive on-line Parameter IDentification (PID) during the failure and gives an on-board flight controller the capability to adjust to maintain the best possible flight performance during an unexpected failure.;This document will outline and describe the design and building of the flight controller, aircraft test-beds, on-board payload systems, and software in detail. Flight test results will be presented and documented to demonstrate the performance of a NN based FTFCS under failure conditions.

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