A Benchmark for Fault Tolerant Flight Control Evaluation

A large transport aircraft simulation benchmark (REconfigurable COntrol for Vehicle Emergency Return RECOVER) has been developed within the GARTEUR Flight Mechanics Action Group 16 on Fault Tolerant Control (2004–2008) for the integrated evaluation of fault detection and identification (FDI) and reconfigurable flight control strategies. The benchmark includes a suitable set of challenging assessment criteria and failure cases, based on reconstructed accident scenarios, to assess the potential of new adaptive control strategies to improve aircraft survivability. The application of reconstruction and modeling techniques, based on accident flight data, has resulted in high fidelity non-linear aircraft and fault models to evaluate new Fault Tolerant Flight Control (FTFC) concepts and their real-time performance to accommodate in-flight failures.