Control Allocation Framework with SVD-based Protection for a Tilt-rotor VTOL Transition Air Vehicle

Control allocation aims to solve for an inversion problem given the effectiveness matrix and commanded forces/moments while accounting for input saturations. In case of an ill conditioned effectiveness matrix, the solution of control allocation is subject to chattering, noise amplification, higher degree of saturation and internal conflict between effectors, thus degrading performance or even endangering safety. When the effectiveness is ill conditioned, it physically means the aircraft lacks capability in achieving forces/moments in certain directions, and such directions should be avoided from the commanded forces/moments. In this paper, a control allocation framework is implemented, highlighting an SVD-based protection in the main allocation algorithm. The proposed approach is compared with a baseline algorithm in an open-loop controller based on flight test data and shows improved numerical robustness and flight performance.     «

Control allocation aims to solve for an inversion problem given the effectiveness matrix and commanded forces/moments while accounting for input saturations. In case of an ill conditioned effectiveness matrix, the solution of control allocation is subject to chattering, noise amplification, higher degree of saturation and internal conflict between effectors, thus degrading performance or even endangering safety. When the effectiveness is ill conditioned, it physically means the aircraft lacks ca...     »