Abstract
A flight controller based on Simple Adaptive Control (SAC) method was implemented to Multi-Purpose Aviation Laboratory MuPAL-α developed by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) to demonstrate the effectiveness of SAC flight controller in the serious fault case where the longitudinal stability was suddenly reduced in the air. A parallel feed-forward compensator was added to make the whole system meet the ASPR (Almost Strictly Positive Real) condition that is necessary for the plant to be stabilized by the SAC controller. In order to represent the fault case in a real flight test, a "pseudo-fault term" was added to the original controller equipped with MuPAL-α. Through numerical simulations, hardware in the loop tests and flight experiments, it was revealed that the SAC could stabilize the aircraft with such a fatal fault while a conventional PID control system could not stabilize the plane.
