Nonlinear Total Energy Control for the Longitudinal dynamics of an aircraft

Many common altitude and airspeed control schemes for an aircraft assume that the altitude and airspeed dynamics are decoupled which leads to errors. The Total Energy Control System (TECS) is an approach that controls the altitude and airspeed by manipulating the total energy rate and energy distribution rate, of the aircraft, in a manner which accounts for the dynamic coupling. In this paper, a nonlinear controller based on the TECS principles are derived. Simulation results show that the nonlinear controller has better performance than the standard PI type TECS control schemes.