An Implementation of Best Practices in Aircraft Flight Control Law Design

A design procedure is presented for flight control laws (FCL) based on two degrees of freedom control, the first degree defining input to output characteristics and the second coping with disturbance rejection, noise rejection and robustness. A longitudinal FCL design for an executive aircraft is used as illustration. Traditional Handling Qualities criteria entails input to output requirements and minimum sensitivity bandwidth yields disturbance rejection, noise rejection and robustness. The procedure is shown to be a potential best practice alternative in FCL design, compatible with current FlyByWire implementations and which might allow concurrent design and optimization of system and aircraft characteristics.