Adaptive PI Control Based Stability Margin Configuration of Aircraft Control Systems with Unknown System Parameters and Time Delay

The stability margin is a vital indicator for assessing the safety level of aircraft control systems. It should maintain sufficient stability margin to ensure safety during flight, especially in the process of large maneuver operations. The stability margin is generally quantified by the Bode diagram, which strictly depends on the system parameters and the open-loop transfer function. However, due to the uncertain flight environments, transmission delays of sensors and mode switchings, etc., there exist large parameter and structure uncertainties in the aircraft control systems, which make it difficult to precisely configure the stability margin to the desired value by the usual control methods. To address this problem, an indirect adaptive control strategy is proposed in this paper, where an adaptive PI control law with the capability of self-configuration of stability margin is developed. The developed control law not only achieves stable time-varying command tracking in the time domain, but also is able to automatically configure the phase margin and gain margin in the frequency domain. Finally, the simulation of the one-degree-of-freedom roll rate control model of the air vehicle verifies the validity of the proposed control method.