Automatic Flight Control Systems (Synthesis Lectures on Mechanical Engineering)

This book provides readers with a design approach to the automatic flight control systems (AFCS). The AFCS is the primary on-board tool for long flight operations, and is the foundation for the airspace modernization initiatives. In this text, AFCS and autopilot are employed interchangeably. It presents fundamentals of AFCS/autopilot, including primary subsystems, dynamic modeling, AFCS categories/functions/modes, servos/actuators, measurement devices, requirements, functional block diagrams, design techniques, and control laws. The book consists of six chapters. The first two chapters cover the fundamentals of AFCS and closed-loop control systems in manned and unmanned aircraft. The last four chapters present features of Attitude control systems (Hold functions), Flight path control systems (Navigation functions), Stability augmentation systems, and Command augmentation systems, respectively.

Dr. Mohammad H. Sadraey is an associate professor in the College of Engineering at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), Manchester, New Hampshire. Dr. Sadraeys main research interests are in aircraft design techniques, aircraft performance, flight dynamics,and design and automatic control of unmanned aircraft. He earned his M.Sc. in aerospace engineering in 1995 from RMIT, Melbourne, Australia, and his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Kansas, Kansas, in 2006. Dr. Sadraey is a senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Sigma Gamma Tau, and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). He is also listed in Whos Who in America. He has more than 20 years of professional experience in academia and industry. Dr. Sadraey is the author of three other books, including Aircraft Design: A Systems Engineering Approach published by Wiley publications in 2012, and Aircraft Performance by CRC in 2016.