Gust Alleviation Control Using Optimal Preview Control Method
Clear air turbulence (CAT) affecting safety operation of aircraft is one of essential problems when the number of aircraft operations increases and we have to reduce the accident rate. To suppress the dynamic motion of aircraft with high acceleration in turbulence, we consider an optimal preview controller which uses prior information of turbulence measured by a certain air speed sensor such as LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging). The analysis which simulates the dynamic motion of MuPAL-α in actually observed turbulence shows that the proposed optimal preview controller can reduce the impacts on aircraft motion by turbulence such as 60% reduction of maximum acceleration comparing a controller without prior information. The robustness of the proposed controller to uncertainties is also examined.