Innovative Rotorcraft Flight Control Systems Options to Enhance Shipboard Operations

The primary objectives of this SBIR Phase II effort are: (1) offering reliable and robust control laws to enhance existing V-22 Flight Control System (FCS) via adaptive control augmentation and (2) extending the restricted operational envelope (e.g., ship motion, ship airwake, wind-over-the-deck) of rotorcraft operating in shipboard environment by implementation of the proposed adaptive control laws in concert with the V-22’s Roll-on-deck enhanced Flight Software (FSW). These two objectives are achieved through development of the advocated FCS using two proven robust adaptive high performance control schemes, namely Theta-D and Nonlinear Adaptive Control (NAC) architectures. The efficacy of these controllers in providing robustness to parametric and functional uncertainties in the system dynamics was shown during Phase I on a simplified model of rotorcraft operating near ships. In addition, the proposed Theta-D/NAC design concept also offers several attractive features including: (1) ease of implementation and low processing requirements, (2) works in concert with existing V-22 FSW, (3) reliable adaptation capability through direct adaptive paradigm without requiring onboard parameter estimator. The Phase II extensive testing and evaluation of proposed Theta-D/NAC concept will be carried out using tilt-rotor aircraft high-fidelity simulations (via comparative evaluation of results produced by the simulation packages of NAVAIR, IMI, and Boeing).