Abstract:
Two approaches to gains optimization of dynamic inversion control laws have been developed to facilitate the shipboard operation of rotorcraft. The first approach is a frequency-based method to optimize the tradeoff between stability margins and disturbance rejection properties; the second approach uses direct optimization of gains to enhance tracking performance in the time domain. Comparative studies show that both methods tend to use high gain design for improvement of tracking error while rejecting airwake disturbances and following station-keeping commands over a moving deck. The frequency domain based method provides firm information on the margin to instability, although this is done via analysis of each axis independently. The direct optimization approach directly addresses tracking error performance in all axes, but the method resulted in only moderate improvements over the baseline gains for the particular case studied.