New technique for aircraft flight control reconfiguration

A particular algorithm is applied to the aircraft flight control reconfiguration problem. The determination of the desired control law, which can adapt in a very short period of time to major damage of a control surface, is obtained by making use of the recent control and response time histories. The estimated model of the damaged aircraft used in this technique is obtained by using a multiple model Kalman filtering approach. The model estimation and the control algorithm have been codified in a computer simulation program for a six degree-of-freedom aircraft model. The simulation results of the reconfiguration are presented.