ABSTRACT
Control system theory and design practices are used widely across the aerospace industry, especially in creating aircraft, missile and spacecraft guidance, navigation and control (GN&C) systems. They have been critical to the success of many aerospace systems in the past and will be in the future, including the historically significant control-centric systems/missions such as Apollo moon landing mission, International Space Station, Space Shuttle, Boeing 747 aircraft, and Global Positioning System (GPS). Some of the typical examples of “control theory intensive systems” are listed below:
• Aircraft and missile flight control system (FCS) • Aircraft navigation systems • Aircraft and missile vehicle management systems • Aircraft flight management systems • Aircraft fuel management systems • Aircraft collision avoidance systems • Aircraft payload pointing control systems • Spacecraft attitude control systems • Spacecraft thermal control systems • Spacecraft power management systems • Spacecraft orbit and attitude determination systems • Spacecraft vehicle management systems • Spacecraft payload pointing control systems
These systems are becoming more and more sophisticated and their implementations typically involve significant amount of real-time software and in fact it is virtually impossible to find an aerospace control system today that does not use software as the primary means of implementing its complicated logic and algorithms.
