IEET-2015

Exploiting Intelligent Systems in Aircraft Pitch Control

Ibrahim, I.N., Al Akkad, M.A.

Abstract. This paper aims to develop a model for controlling the aircraft pitch angle during its longitudinal motion. The developed model is a time variant nonlinear mathematical model that reflects all the parameters that affect the aircraft dynamics, by describing its motion, space range, and dynamic model of its turbo engine. Several experiments were made on a simulation model of the aircraft to define the problems that may face the autopilot, and the results showed that there is a close relation between the model parameters and the inertia, and between the non-linearity and changing with time that describes the models equations that required simplifying and approximating the model. The developed model is characterized by its precision in describing the aircraft motion and by offering real dynamics compared to other proposed models of similar cases, as it does not rely on rounding operations that allow putting precise evaluation of several pitch controllers. This research tries to find the best performance solution for the autopilot when taking into consideration the time response and the changes within the dynamical model.

Keywords: PID controller, fuzzy logic controller, steady-state error, pitch angle