VLAT Program

The NASA VTOL Approach and Landing Program tested digital-adaptive flight control laws for a helicopter autoland system. It used a Discrete LQG controller to control a CH-47B with type-1 response to guidance commands. This controller was programmed in FORTRAN with the main control loop executing at 10 Hz. The adaptive part of the flight controller used gain scheduling based on correlations and regression analysis. The VLAT program flew VFR approaches. This autoland system tracking errors were 3.6m altitude error, 6.1m lateral error, +- 2 kts airspeed and +-1 deg attitude.

[[Helicopter VFR Approaches]]
[[ROLM 1664 Computer]] – flight computer
[[FORTRAN]] – flight control software language
[[VTOL Aircraft Hover Model]] – can use LQG for pilot control model

Backlinks

Gain Scheduling
[[LQG]]
[[NASA]]