Aircraft Pitch

Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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CONTENTS:
Introduction and Concepts.
Aircraft Pitch Design Requirement
Aircraft Pitch System Modeling
Aircraft Pitch Simulink Analysis

Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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Three axis of flight

include:
Pitch, Roll, and Yaw
1. Roll is controlled
by the air flow
across the
ailerons
1. Yaw is controlled
by the air flow
across the
rudder
1. Pitch is
controlled by the
air flow across
the elevators. Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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Pitch angle: () is the angle between the

center line of the roll axis of the aircraft
(Wing longitudinal axis) and the horizon.

Angle of attack() is the angle between

the chord line of an airfoil and the relative
wind through which it is moving.

The angle of attack and the pitch angle are

usually different in flights

Sometimes the pitch angle may be positive

or negative in normal flight, but the angle
of attack is always positive.
Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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There are 4 forces involved with flight:

Lift , Weight , Thrust , Drag

Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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Design Requirements
Of Air-craft

a)
b)
c)
d)

Overshoot less than 10%

Rise time less than 2 seconds
Settling time less than 10 seconds
Steady-state error less than 2%
Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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Aircraft Pitch:
System Modeling

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System Modeling
of equations governing the motion
The
of an aircraft are a very complicated

set of six nonlinear coupled differential

equations.
However, under certain assumptions,
they can be decoupled and linearized
into longitudinal and lateral equations.
Aircraft pitch is governed by the
longitudinal dynamics. In this example
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Albairouny

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Our Assumptions:

We will assume that the aircraft is in steady-state at

constant altitude and velocity.
Thus, the thrust, drag, weight and lift forces balance each
other in the x- and y-directions.
We will also assume that a change in pitch angle will not
change the speed of the aircraft under any circumstance
(unrealistic but simplifies the problem a bit).
Under these assumptions, the longitudinal equations of
motion for the aircraft can be written as follows:
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Albairouny

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Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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 Before finding the transfer function and statespace models, let's plug in some numerical
values to simplify the modeling equations shown
above:
Above equation become:

Dr Abaza MGH
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Transfer Function:
To find the transfer function of the above
system, we need to take the Laplace
transform of the above modeling equations.

The Laplace transform of the above

equations are shown below.

Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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Dr Abaza MGH
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Simulink Modeling

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System analysis contain:

Open loop response.

Close loop response.
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Simulink models:
Open-loop response:

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State-Space Model

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Open-Loop Response Output

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This response is unstable.

In order to view a stable
response, we will now quickly
add the state-feedback control
gainK.
When gain of K is added our new
Simulink diagram of open-loop
response becomes.
Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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Simulink model
closed-loop response:

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 hange theMultiplicationsetting
toMatrix(K*u)as shown below

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Closed-Loop Response
Output

Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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Design Requirements
Of Air-craft

a)
b)
c)
d)

Overshoot less than 10% (CHECK)

Rise time less than 2 seconds (CHECK)
Settling time less than 10 seconds (CHECK)
Steady-state error less than 2% (??????)
Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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27

How To Solve It?

adding a constant
precompensator
Nbar= 7.0711 to scale the output
to the desired level, so by adding a
Gain blockand substitute the Nbar
Value.

Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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Closed-Loop with Nbar

Output

Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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Design Requirements
Of Air-craft

a)
b)
c)
d)

Overshoot less than 10% (CHECK)

Rise time less than 2 seconds (CHECK)
Settling time less than 10 seconds (CHECK)
Steady-state error less than 2% (CHECK)
Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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31

PID
Set (P and I) to 1, and (D to 0)
P and I will decrease the steady state
error together, but the D used
generally in the controlling systems
to decrease the system settling time
which already had been solved within
the system

Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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32

References
Aircraft Pitch Motion. 2015.Aircraft Pitch
Motion. [ONLINE] Available at:https://
www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/
pitch.html.
aviation. 2015.aviation. [ONLINE] Available
at:http://smoknjoe.tripod.com/aviation.htm .
Angle of Attack and Lift. 2015.Angle of
Attack and Lift. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://avstop.com/ac/flighttrainghandbook/a
ngleofattackandlift.html
.
Dr Abaza MGH
Albairouny

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