A Workstation for the Integrated Design and Simulation of Flight Control Systems

This paper describes the development of a workstation which integrates design, analysis, and simulation methods used for flight control system synthesis. Aerodynamic, propulsion, and structural models can be directly interfaced for analysis and synthesis work, and the results transferred to a flight simulator and to the dynamic structural model. The workstation is implemented with an executive which handles most input/output operations internally so that data management by the user is minimized. To be implemented is an expert-aided approach, by which predicted flying qualities are used to evaluate the performance of the closed loop system. If the desired flying qualities are not attained, a rule base would advise the user on how to modify the flight control system. A modular approach allows new techniques to be easily implemented as executives or as additional modules.