L1 Adaptive Controller for Tailless Unstable Aircraft

The advantages of L₁ adaptive control architecture, such as improved transient and asymptotic tracking, guaranteed time-delay margin achieved via smooth control input, have been previously established. In this paper, the L₁ adaptive controller is designed for a multi-input multi-output open loop unstable unmanned military aircraft. The control is designed to accommodate and to be robust to actuator failures, as well as to pitch break uncertainty that is used to model uncertain aerodynamics. Results of using the L₁ adaptive controller are compared with the conventional model reference adaptive control scheme to show improved transient command tracking and time-delay margin.