On the stability of a pilot-aircraft system with input delay using controllers obtained by Artstein transform

Abstract

In this paper the stability of a pilot-aircraft system with input delay, using robustcontrollers obtained by Artstein transform, is studied. The aircraft is modelled by the ADMIREshort-period dynamics together with the unsaturated first-order actuator model. The pilot modelis expressed by a fixed gain together with a simple delay and is supposed to act on piecewiseconstant control signals. Beside the case when the states of the system are reachable, the casewhen the states are not reachable is taken into account, using state observers. Also, the optimalstabilization with prescribed degree of stability is used for designing another robust controllerfor the simplified ADMIRE model. Through a trial of numerical cases considered, the robustnessof the proposed control laws is investigated in the context of the admisible human pilot delays.