In Search of Fast and Robust Adaptation

Dr. Naira HovakimyanDepartment of Aerospace and Ocean EngineeringVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State UniversityAbstract: The history of adaptive control systems dates back to early fifties, when the aeronautical community was struggling to advance aircraft speeds to higher Mach numbers. In November of 1967, X-15 launched on what was planned to be a routine research flight to evaluate a boost guidance system, but it went into a spin and eventually broke up at 65,000 feet, killing the pilot Michael Adams. It was later found that the onboard adaptive control system was to be blamed for this incident. Exactly thirty years later, fueled by advances in the theory of nonlinear control, Air Force successfully flight tested the unmanned unstable tailless X-36 aircraft with an onboard adaptive flight control system. This was a landmark achievement that dispelled some of the misgivings that had arisen from the X-15 crash in 1967. Since then, numerous flight tests of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) weapon retrofitted with adaptive element have met with great success and have proven the benefits of the adaptation in the presence of component failures and aerodynamic uncertainties. However, the major challenge related to stability/robustness assessment of adaptive systems is still being resolved based on testing the closed-loop system for all possible variations of uncertainties in Monte Carlo simulations, the cost of which increases with the growing complexity of the systems. This presentation will give an overview of the limitations inherent to the conventional adaptive controllers and will introduce a new thinking for adaptive control design that leads to fast and robust adaptation with provable control specifications and guaranteed stability/robustness margins. Various applications will be discussed throughout the presentation to demonstrate the tools and the concepts.

Location: Seaver Science Library, Room 150

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: April Mundy