An Ad-Hoc Adaptive Pilot Model for Pitch Axis Gross Acquisition Tasks

An ad-hoc algorithm is presented for real-time adaptation of the well-known crossover pilot model and applied to pitch axis gross acquisition tasks in a generic fighter aircraft. Off-line tuning of the crossover model to human pilot data gathered in a fixed-based high fidelity simulation is first accomplished for a series of changes in aircraft dynamics to provide expected values for model parameters. It is shown that in most cases, for this application, the traditional crossover model can be reduced to a gain and a time delay. The ad-hoc adaptive pilot gain algorithm is shown to have desirable convergence properties for most types of changes in aircraft dynamics.