The design and optimization of aircraft control systems has a key impact on improving environmental friendliness, economic viability and safety of future aircraft generations. Automatic flight control systems allow for active stabilization of the air- craft and for reduction of loads on the structure, and in this way facilitate the design of aerodynamically more efficient aircraft configurations. Modern fault-tolerant and adaptive control methods additionally guarantee full functionality of the control systems even in severe failure cases and thus improve the safety of the aircraft.
Researchers at the SR institute develop novel flight control systems and support the design process with versatile computational design and analysis tools. In flight experiments with DLR’s research aircraft, such efficient control algorithms are validated and airport approach trajectories with minimized emissions are demonstrated.
For the automatic simulation of complete flight missions, of e.g. solar high-altitude platforms, the institute develops novel methods for mission planning and trajectory optimization.