Fleet-Wide Variability for an Integrated Flight and Propulsion System

Impact Technologies, LLC, in collaboration with SC Solutions and University of California at San Diego proposes the development and testing of a software tool for the analysis of robustness and performance of integrated flight and propulsion control systems. The goal of this tool is enable the verification of control systems and assess their ability to meet performance requirements. The team will design this tool in close collaboration with NAVAIR and Pratt & Whitney and target the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) as its primary application platform. This Matlab/Simulink based tool will enable automated analysis of the system along with its parametric and non-parametric variability to quantify system stability and performances margins, as well as time and frequency domain performance. During the analysis, it will quantify and incorporate variability and uncertainty in dynamic performance and control. This uncertainty characterization process will account for variability in the target platform during its useful life and across an entire fleet. This tool will draw upon techniques from multivariable robust controls, nonlinear system analysis, probability and nonlinear programming. Significant innovation will include development of stability and performance metrics for large order nonlinear systems and analytical verification of large order nonlinear control system performance. These innovations will represent a significant improvement in computational, time and cost saving over more cumbersome and less robust state-of-the-art techniques like Monte Carlo and other variance reduced simulation.