Intelligent Control Strategies for Enhancing Airplane Recovery Under Wind Shear

Wind-shear is an environmental factor that may affect the safety of an airplane, especially when flying at low altitude. In order to overcome this effect, the present work implements intelligent control strategies for recovery. These strategies are based on a closed-loop control system that can maintain airplane stability during such events. The proposed system is based on airplane longitudinal dynamics in conjunction with multiple control algorithms. Both straight level flight and landing phases have been analyzed. Upon comparing the performance of the different algorithms; the best controller to mitigate the effect of wind shear in straight and level flight was identified as the Proportional Derivative Controller (PD controller), as it has the fastest response, and minimum oscillations, as well as low overshoot and short settling time. On the other hand, for the landing phase, the Lead/Lag compensator was able to achieve the best performance with no overshoot and moderate settling time.