Closing Gaps for Aircraft Attitude Higher Order Sliding Mode Control Certification via Practical Stability Margins Identification.

In this paper, the conventional aircraft control system certification approach based on phase margin (PM) and gain margin (GM) is extended to higher order sliding mode (HOSM) controllers. The proposed practical stability PM (PSPM) and the practical stability GM (PSGM) are used to quantify the HOSM control system robustness to unmodeled dynamics. The tools/algorithms for the identification of PSPM and PSGM are developed using describing function-harmonic balance method. A design algorithm of a cascade dynamic compensator for a dynamically perturbed HOSM control system is presented and can be used to satisfy required practical stability margins. The theoretical developments are illustrated and validated on controlling the attitude of an F-16 aircraft. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]