Integrated Flight/Propulsion Control for Flight Critical Applications: A Propulsion System Perspective

The Pratt & Whitney and Northrop companies together, under the Air Force Wright Research and Development Center (WRDC) sponsored Integrated Reliable Fault-Tolerant Control for Large Engines (INTERFACE II) Program [1, 2], designed and demonstrated an advanced real-time Integrated Flight and Propulsion Control (IFPC) system. This IFPC system was based upon the development of physically distinctive, functionally integrated, flight and propulsion controls that managed the Northrop twin engine, statically unstable, P700 airplane. Digital flight control and digital engine control hardware were combined with cockpit control hardware and computer simulations of the airplane and engines to provide a real-time, closed-loop, piloted IFPC system. As part of a follow-on effort, lessons learned during the INTERFACE II program are being applied to the design of a flight critical propulsion control system. This paper will present both the results of the INTERFACE II IFPC program and approaches toward definition and development of an integrated propulsion control system for flight critical applications.