Design and Implementation of Fractional Order Proportional Integral Controller for the Control of Aircraft Pitch Dynamics

Fractional calculus has gained attraction in the recent past in various fields. But the control design techniques available for the fractional order system suffer from lack of systematic approaches. In this paper, fractional order Proportional Integral Controller is designed to improve the performance and robustness for Aircraft pitch dynamic system which is governed by a Type 1 second order system open loop unstable process. Frequency domain specifications such as phase margin specification, gain margin specification and robustness to parameter variations are considered for the design purpose. From the simulation studies, it is clear that the proposed controller works efficiently even under parameter variations.