Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2016
A two step procedure is proposed for the design of nonlinear aircraft control systems. A classical design is first denned, based on a linearised aircraft model, and easily optimised by means of standard approaches. An outer-loop nonlinear controller is then used to enhance the whole control system. This latter controller is based on fuzzy logic rules and is of fixed structure. Its behaviour is based on the choice of a set of parameters that may be tuned by means a genetic algorithm based routine. The whole methodology is simple to handle and may be effectively used to give quick and efficient responses to the designer. The procedure has been verified with a couple of examples: the obtained results clearly show important improvements with respect to a classical methodology.