Reconfiguration of the actuator mix which is used for flight control becomes necessary when an actuator fails or is damaged. The main concern is survivability and controllability of the vehicle, and the applications range from fighters to UAVs to civil air transports. Currently there are a number of ad-hoc but workable techniques to approach this problem, but very little theoretical basis. Unlike fault detection and isolation, which is considered the "first half" of the problem, no fundamental methodology is currently accepted for re-allocating surfaces in real time. This project started in June, and currently has three goals:

1. To provide comparisons of existing techniques,
2. To implement recent automated gain scheduling methods as tools for reconfiguration of the X33, and
3. To develop metrics for robustness which include failures, so that reconfiguration strategies can be compared analytically.
   graphic to come!
   PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS

   J. D. Paduano

   Jerry Wohletz (jwohletz@MIT.EDU)