The use of mu-synthesis in full envelope, helicopter flight control system design

Substantial progress has been made towards designing a full envelope, decoupled helicopter flight control system with initial designs having been successfully `flown´ on the RAE Bedford flight simulator. Results have shown that the μ-synthesis controller design method offers significant performance robustness to changes in the system operating point when compared to methods which do not incorporate a model of system uncertainty into the design process. Further results show how controller conditioning can be used to prevent unnecessary degradation of performance, for example through integral windup, during actuator saturation