Application of a model-based flight director design technique to a longitudinal hover task

sAn analytical pilot model is used to design flight director laws for longitudinal control of a UH-1H helicopter in hovering flight in the presence of longitudinal turbulence. A simplified design technique is demonstrated which uses only essential feedbacks in synthesizing the director laws. The flight director is evaluated in a fixed-based pilot-in-the-loop simulation, in which root mean square performance and pilot opinion ratings are obtained. Significant improvement in performance and pilot ratings is achieved with the director as compared to the baseline display, in which only status information is presented. Based upon simulation results, the pilot model is refined, and improved director laws are generated and analytically evaluated using the refined model.