Integrated flight/propulsion control system design based on a centralized approach

An integrated flight/propulsion control system design is presented for the piloted longitudinal landing task with a modern, statically unstable, fighter aircraft. A centralized compensator based on the linear quadratic Gaussian/loop transfer recovery methodology is first obtained to satisfy the feedback loop performance and robustness specifications. This high-order centralized compensator is then partitioned into airframe and engine "subcontrollers" based on modal controllability/observability for the compensator modes, and the subcontrollers are further reduced in order and simplified. These subcontrollers have the advantage that they can be implemented as separate controllers on the airframe and the engine while still retaining the important performance and stability characteristics of the full-order centralized compensator.