A novel combination of three control systems is presented in this paper: an adaptive control system, a type-two fuzzy logic system, and a super-twisting sliding mode control (STSMC) system. This combination was developed at the Laboratory of Applied Research in Active Controls, Avionics and AeroServoElasticity (LARCASE). This controller incorporates two methods to calculate the gains of the switching term in the STSMC utilizing the particle swarm optimization algorithm: (1) adaptive gains and (2) optimized gains. This methodology was applied to a nonlinear model of the Cessna Citation X business jet aircraft generated by the simulation platform developed at the LARCASE in Simulink/MATLAB (R2022b) for aircraft lateral motion. The platform was validated with flight data obtained from a Level-D research aircraft flight simulator manufactured by the CAE (Montreal, Canada). Level D denotes the highest qualification that the FAA issues for research flight simulators. The performances of controllers were evaluated using the turbulence generated by the Dryden model. The simulation results show that this controller can address both turbulence and existing uncertainties. Finally, the controller was validated for 925 flight conditions over the whole flight envelope for a single configuration using both adaptive and optimized gains in switching terms of the STSMC.

This paper presents a novel artificial intelligence-based autopilot control system designed for the Cessna Citation X (CCX) aircraft longitudinal motion during cruise. In this control methodology, the unknown aircraft dynamics in the state-space representations of each vertical speed (VS) mode and altitude hold (AH) mode were approximated by two multiplayer fuzzy recurrent neural networks (MFRNNs) trained online using a novel approach based on particle swarm optimisation and backpropagation algorithms. These MFRNNs were used with two sliding mode controllers to guarantee the robustness of both VS and AH modes. In addition, a novel fuzzy logic-based transition algorithm was proposed to efficiently switch the controller between these autopilot modes. The performance of the controllers was evaluated with a nonlinear simulation platform developed for the CCX based on data from a Level D research aircraft flight simulator certified by the FAA. The system stability and robustness were proved by the Lyapunov theorem. The simulation, tested under 925 flight conditions, demonstrated the controllers exceptional tracking capability in a variety of uncertainties, including turbulent and non-turbulent flight scenarios. In addition, the design ensured that the smoothness of the control input signals was maintained in order to preserve the mechanical integrity of the elevator actuation system.