Control Allocation for an Over-Actuated Aircraft Based on Within-Visual-Range Air Combat Agility

The control allocation problems of an over-actuated aircraft are studied to fully utilize the within-visual-range (WVR) air combat agility. By analyzing the agility requirements of modern WVR air combat, a control effector superiority evaluating method is proposed to identify the control effectors participated in control allocation. An optimized control allocation model is constructed based on the air combat agility. As a case study, the control effector superiority parameters of a typical canard-delta-wing aircraft are evaluated, and the optimized control allocation configuration is built. The combat cycle times of the optimized and other two control allocation configurations are evaluated by pilot-in-the-loop simulation on a ground-based flight simulator. The simulation results show that the optimized control allocation model constructed in this paper can efficiently make use of the agility potentials of the target aircraft, which indicates that the control effector superiority evaluating method and the control allocation model proposed are sound and effective.