Implementation Challenges for Multivariable Control

What you don’t learn in school!

Dr. Sanjay Garg

NASA Glenn Research Center, MS 77-1

21000 Brookpark Road

Cleveland, OH 44135

Multivariable control allows controller designs that can provide decoupled command tracking and robust performance in the presence of modeling uncertainties. Although the last two decades have seen extensive development of multivariable control theory and example applications to complex systems in software/hardware simulations, there are no “production” flying systems – aircraft or spacecraft, that use multivariable control. This is because of the tremendous challenges associated with implementation of such multivariable control designs. Unfortunately, the curriculum in schools does not provide sufficient time to be able to provide an exposure to the students in such implementation challenges. The objective of this presentation is to share the lessons learned by a practitioner of multivariable control in the process of applying some of the modern control theory to the Integrated Flight Propulsion Control (IFPC) design for an Advanced Short Take-Off Vertical Landing (STOVL) aircraft simulation. The presentation focuses on the challenges and barriers of using multivariable control designs in real flight systems, and presents tools and techniques for overcoming some of the barriers with illustrative examples from the STOVL IFPC design study.

Biosketch:

Dr. Sanjay Garg received the Ph.D. degree in Aeronautics from Purdue University, M.Sc. degree in Aerospace Engineering from University of Minnesota, and the B.Tech degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India. Dr. Garg has worked as a controls engineer at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) since 1988 and is currently Chief of the Controls and Dynamics Branch. Dr. Garg is responsible for the development of advanced dynamic modeling, health management, and control design and implementation technologies for application to current and future aerospace propulsion systems. Dr. Garg has authored over 50 technical papers and has presented graduate seminars at various universities. Dr. Garg is a Senior Member of IEEE, Associate Fellow of AIAA, and a past member of the AIAA Technical Committee on Guidance, Navigation and Control. He served as the technical program chairman for the 1993 AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference and as an Associate Editor for the AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics from 1994 to 1996. He served as the Chair of the AIAA Intelligent Systems Technical Committee from May 2005 to April 2007. Dr. Garg is a recipient of the NASA Medal for Exceptional Achievement and a NASA fellowship for the Program for Management Development at Harvard Business School. He has recently completed the NASA Senior Executive Service Candidate Development program.

Friday, October 19, 2007

3:30 – 4:30 p.m.

Rm. 1500 EECS