Adaptive control design methodology for nonlinear-in-control systems in aircraft applications

An adaptive control design method for both short-period and lateral/directional control of a fighter aircraft is presented. The proposed method is directly applicable to flight control of vehicles with state-dependent and nonlinear-in-control uncertain dynamics. The developed design approach uses a specialized set of radial basis function approximators and Lyapunov-based adaptive laws to compensate for the unknown control-dependent nonlinearities. The adaptive controller is defined as a solution of fast dynamics, which verifies the assumptions of Tikhonov's theorem from singular perturbations theory. Simulations illustrate the theoretical findings.