16.30  Estimation and control of aerospace systems

From the course catalogue:

"The design of control systems using frequency domain and state space techniques. Control law design using Nyquist diagrams and Bode plots. State feedback, state estimation, and the design of dynamic control laws. Elementary analysis of nonlinearities and their impact on control design. Extensive use of computer-aided control design tools. Applications to various aerospace systems including navigation, guidance, and control of vehicles."

In practice, the objective of this course can be summarized as providing the students with a solid, hands-on knowledge of  practical  control design methods for single-input, single-output systems. Most of the work will focus on linear, time-invariant systems, and will be done in the frequency domain.

Building on the material covered in 16.06, we will consider some of the main issues arising in "real-world" control design problems, including:
- Digital control systems (as in ``sampled-time" control systems).
- Estimation and output feedback.
- Effects of basic nonlinearities; robustness to uncertainties and external disturbances.

The course will include several labs, focusing on the Quanser 3-DOF helicopters.