A generic object-oriented implementation for flight control systems
Patricia C. Glaab, Michael Madden · 1999
This paper presents a design for a generic flight control system (FCS) architecture that breaks the control system into a coupled interaction of laws and devices with a standardized method for execution. Laws generally are computational components that generate commands as outputs, and any number of laws can be isolated and registered on a list in any order for execution. Control devices are code components that receive the command inputs and use additional computations to generate device outputs, such as the servoactuator positions for the control of surfaces. Any number of devices are allowable for a given flight control system and are registered in list format for execution. This method allows for both simplistic FCS implementations and highly complex control systems without changing the architectural requirements of the high level executive. By separating the laws from the devices, special case handling required for control law bypassing (such as that required for direct-drive surface testing and linear analysis) is easily handled at the execution level. No special code support is required internal to the laws.