Final year project report presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Abstract

The goal of this report is to develop a model reference adaptive control system (MRAC) for aerospace vehicles that can enhance their fl ying qualities and cancel out or reject any type of pertur- bations in the control input channel as well as external environmental disturbances while the aircraft is in fl ight. Several strategies and approaches were investigated. The basic direct and indirect model reference adaptive control methods were introduced, followed by the robust modifi ed controllers 𝜎- modifi cation and 𝑒-modifi cation, as well as the 𝜇-modifi cation, which handles actuator restrictions. The model reference adaptive fl ight control system, referred to as the augmented model reference adaptive controller is based on the direct MRAC approach, which adjusts the system’s control law parameters by estimating its parameters directly was established. It utilizes two adaptive control ar- chitectures: Robust adaptive control based on 𝑒-mod to rend the system reliable when subjected to external disturbances, and constrained adaptive control based on 𝜇-mod, which assures stability in the presence of actuator amplitude saturation plus the elimination of the saturation. The stability study of all the mentioned controllers and approaches were covered using Lyapunov’s stability theorems as well as the uniform ultimate boundedness theorem.