Robust Framework for Reliability Analysis of UAV Control Systems

Principal Investigator: Dr. Mazen Farhood

Flight controllers for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) have to be certified to function correctly throughout the flight envelope, under a variety of possible uncertainties and exogenous disturbances. NAVAIR is responsible for certifying control systems for two types of UAS: those with detailed, known heritage from USN acquisition programs, and those with less well-known heritage and scant design documentation. When formulating the control problem, model simplifications are typically made to reduce the complexity of the control design process. Once the controller is designed, there will inevitably be some performance degradation as a result of simplification, uncertainty, or unpredictability, and it is crucial to investigate whether this will have an adverse effect on the overall performance.