Model Reference Adaptive Control for a Class of Aircraft with Actuator Saturation

Model reference adaptive control (MRAC) is known as a proper method to handle uncertainties of systems and achieve precision command tracking. However, actuator saturation of aircraft limits the ability of the adaptive controller in practice. In this paper, a modified automatic control architecture is presented for a class of aircraft in the presence of input saturation. The proposed controller is based on model reference adaptive control augmented with a modem anti-windup (AW) compensator. First, a standard MRAC with integral state feedback is described. Second, a Riccati-based AW compensator is employed to solve the input saturation problem. Finally, the control technique is applied to control the vertical acceleration of the aircraft with significant uncertainty in control effectiveness and matched uncertainties. Simulation results verify the performance of proposed method.