ℒ ₁ adaptive controller for tailless unstable aircraft in the presence of unknown actuator failures

This article considers application of ℒ1 adaptive controller to multi-input multi-output open loop unstable unmanned military aircraft. The control is designed to accommodate and to be robust to actuator failures as well as to pitch break uncertainty, which is used to model uncertain aerodynamics. Results of using the ℒ1 adaptive controller are compared with the conventional model reference adaptive control scheme to show improved transient command tracking as well as guaranteed time-delay margin.