This recently completed Ph.D. thesis provides a systematic and easily understood method to automatically produce gain schedules for aircraft. The method relies on optimization of robustness, performance, and handling qualities metrics, while maintaining a user-defined structure for both the controller and the gain scheduling equations. Gain scheduling parameters are basically coefficients of nonlinear regressors, and a mixed H-infinity/ Neal-Smith metric is used for optimization of these parameters. The method was demonstrated on an F-18 piloted simulation with excellent results. This project was completed in May of 1997, and application of the method is continuing in the context of reconfigurable control.

J. D. Paduano

Piero Miotto (pmiotto@mit.edu)