TABLE OF CONTENTS The classical feedback control techniques developed in Chapter 8 provide the foundation for the design of aircraft feedback control systems. The root locus will be a primary design tool used in this text, but the reader should be aware that additional analysis methods, such as Bode plots, are also used extensively by designers. Fortunately, several computer programs have been developed (such as MATLAB (a registered trademark of The MathWorks, Inc.) and XMATH) that provide a user-friendly generation of root locus plots and associated open-loop and closed-loop time response characteristics. Two such programs, Program CC developed by Systems Technology, Inc., and MATLAB will be used for the generation of root locus plots throughout this chapter. The detailed discussion of root locus plotting techniques in the last chapter should provide design insight in developing strategies for improving dynamic stability characteristics. The reader is encouraged to review the complex plane time response relationships presented in Sec. 7.2 and the closed-loop design concepts presented in Chapter 8.
The dynamic stability characteristics of aircraft have been improved during the past 50 years using a variety of inner-loop feedback control systems. Inner- loop simply refers to the fact that these systems are represented as the inner loop in a block diagram representation when married with outer-loop autopilot modes such as attitude hold. Although not exact, inner-loop feedback control systems can be grouped into three broad categories: stability augmentation systems, control augmentation systems, and fly-by-wire systems.
Stability augmentation...
