Three-axis coupled flight control law design for flying wing aircraft using eigenstructure assignment method

Due to elimination of horizontal and vertical tails, flying wing aircraft has poor longitudinal and directional dynamic characteristics. In addition, flying wing aircraft uses drag rudders for yaw control, which tends to generate strong three-axis control coupling. To overcome these problems, a flight control law design method that couples the longitudinal axis with the lateral-directional axes is proposed. First, the three-axis coupled control augmentation structure is specified. In the structure, a “soft/hard” cross-connection method is developed for three-axis dynamic decoupling and longitudinal control response decoupling from the drag rudders; maneuvering turn angular rate estimation and subtraction are used in the yaw axis to improve the directional damping. Besides, feedforward control is adopted to improve the maneuverability and control decoupling performance. Then, detailed design methods for feedback and feedforward control parameters are established using eigenstructure assignment and model following technique. Finally, the proposed design method is evaluated and compared with conventional method by numeric simulations. The influences of control derivatives variation of drag rudders on the method are also analyzed. It is demonstrated that the method can effectively improve the dynamic characteristics of flying wing aircraft, especially the directional damping characteristics, and decouple the longitudinal responses from the drag rudders.