Flight control with amplitude and rate constraints: A Command Governor approach

In this paper we present an application of a novel constrained control technique known as Command Governor (CG) to deal with the problem of actuator amplitude and rate saturation on aircrafts. The aim of the CG strategy consists of modifying, whenever necessary, the reference signal supplied to a primal compensated system so as to guarantee the fulfillment of existing constraints. CG action is obtained solving on line an optimization procedure which embodies the future plant- evolution according to the receding horizon philosophy. To show the effectiveness of the proposed constrained control algorithm numerical simulations are carried out on a small commercial aircraft of the General Aviation class.