ME4241 Flight Dynamics, Stability & Control G.

Leng

SCILAB EXERCISE

The basic lab exercise assumes that you have some experience with Scilab programming.

1. Objective

The objective of the lab is to study the effect of feedback gains on an aircraft stability
augmentation system (SAS).

2. Theory

The SAS is represented by the block diagram below :


-
ref
ka
e
(s)/e(s)
q(s)/e(s)
kq
qref
-
q

Small perturbations about a trim condition at 180 m/s are modelled by the short period
approximation:

’ -1.16668 1  - 0.121741
= + e
q’ -49.4425 -1.47961 q -22.4739

Using both AOA and pitch rate feedback, the control law takes the form:

e = ka  + kq q

For this lab exercise we will select the gains ka and kq so that the short period oscillations
are damped out sufficiently fast.
ME4241 Flight Dynamics, Stability & Control G. Leng

3. Procedure

1. Create a directory on your PC and place the following Scilab files (downloaded from
the course website) in it
i) a4.sci
ii) fm.sci
iii) aircraft.sci
iv) perf.sci
v) costf.sci

2. Start Scilab on your PC and change Scilab's path to your directory by typing at the
prompt

chdir (“c:\your_directory_name”);

3. Run the Scilab programme a4.m by typing at the prompt

exec(“a4.sci”, 0)

Enter the gains ka = 0.0 and kq = 0.0

and observe the resulting open loop
response for a perturbation of 0.1 rad
in the AOA. You should see the plot
of AOA, pitch rate and elevator
deflection on the left.

Does the perturbation damp out

sufficiently fast? Observe that a
perturbation in the AOA affects the
pitch rate as well.

4. By varying one gain at a time, can you deduce the effect of each gain on the closed
loop response. Did you manage to achieve satisfactory SAS performance?

5. In the file fm.sci we have constructed a simple SAS performance index by measuring
the absolute deviation of AOA and pitch rate from trim for the first 3 sec. We can plot
this performance index as a function of both gains using a contour plot, type

exec(“perf.sci”, 0)

The range of gains used for the contour plot are ka = [-0.2, 1.4] and kq = [0.2 , 1.2]. Is
there an “optimal” choice of gains? Can you determine it’s approximate value?
ME4241 Flight Dynamics, Stability & Control G. Leng

6. You can let Scilab determine the “optimal” gains by first loading the performance
index

exec(“costf.sci”, 0)

and followed by

[PI, kopt] = optim( costf, [ka, kq] )

ka and kq are your guess for the optimal values of ka and kq. This may take a few
minutes. Check the closed loop response for the computed optimal gains using a4.sci Is
there any improvement in response time? If you didn’t have the benefit of a contour plot
can you still locate the optimal gains? Watch out for the control deflection! Is it within
acceptable bounds?

4. Additional Lab Exercise

If you are proficient in Scilab programming, try modifying the performance index used in
fm.sci and try computing the corresponding “optimal” gains. What is a “good”
performance index for an SAS?