Output Feedback Fuzzy Gain-Scheduling for MIMO Systems Applied to Flexible Aircraft Control

Previous works of our group evidenced stability problems associated with flight control law design for flexible aircraft regarding the gain-scheduling. This paper proposes an output feedback fuzzy-based gain-scheduling approach to adequate closed-loop response in a broader range of the flight envelope. This method applies a variation of the controller gains based on the membership function design for all the varying parameters, such as dynamic pressure. It aims for performance improvement while enforcing global stability gain-scheduling. The technique was demonstrated for the flexible ITA X-HALE aircraft nonlinear model and compared to the classical interpolation-based gain-scheduling technique. The results revealed that fuzzy-based gain scheduling can effectively handle high-order systems while ensuring global system stability, leading to an overall improvement in performance.