Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/S61874/01
Title:	New analysis techniques for non-linear systems with application to the clearance of flight control laws for highly augmented aircraft
Principal Investigator:	Bates, Professor D
Other Investigators:	Postlethwaite, Professor I
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Engineering
Organisation:	University of Leicester
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	01 January 2004	Ends:	31 January 2007	Value (£):	344,665
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Control Engineering
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Aerospace, Defence and Marine
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
The proposed study aims to develop new non-linear analysis techniques for the clearance of flight control laws for highly augmented aircraft. The current industrial clearance process is based on classical control metrics and exhaustive simulation and, for non-linear clearance criteria in particular, is a lengthy, expensive and difficult task. The proposed research will develop new techniques to improve both the efficiency and reliability of the flight clearance process, by developing new non-linear clearance criteria and methods. The proposed research will focus on two of the most promising approaches for non-linear analysis of flight clearance problems, namely, non-linear robustness analysis and non-linear numerical optimisation. Nonlinear robustness analysis attempts to generalise tools from linear robust control theory to non-linear systems. Non-linear numerical optimisation formulates flight clearance criteria as non-linear programming problems (NLP's), whose solutions can be obtained using a variety of different optimisation algorithms. While both approaches show great potential for use in the flight clearance process, many theoretical and practical issues remain to be resolved before they can be widely adopted by industry. The proposed project aims to address this problem by generating new methods with interactive MATLAB-based worked examples to illustrate their application to realistic clearance problems from both military and civil domains.
Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Organisation Website:	http://www.le.ac.uk