Rotorcraft-Specific Reconfigurable Flight Control System

Advanced rotorcraft systems are highly complicated and have become prime targets for enemy anti-air weapons. Thus, battle-induced damage can be anticipated. To increase the availability, combat survivability, maintainability, and life-cycle cost effectiveness of advanced rotorcraft, reconfigurable flight controls are needed. In this project, a rotorcraft-specific reconfigurable flight control system is developed. This system addresses unique characteristic of the rotorcrft system which is not surface-rich in comparison to its fixed-wing counterpart. The fuzzy logics are used to furnish inflight fault detection, onboard expert diagnosis evaluation, and real-time fault accommodation functions. A two layer arrangement of fuzzy logics are also used for mode blending to enhance pilot handling qualities. Simulations are used to verify and quantify the performance of the fuzzy reconfigurable flight control system. In Phase II, the design, both software and hardware, will be implemented and tested in a hardware-in-the-loop environment.