Since the early days of aviation, engineers with inventive talents had to overcome
tremendous challenges. From building vehicles that can fly in a controllable
manner designed and flown by pioneers like Lilienthal, Wright brothers,
Sperry in the beginnings, to developing todays modern comfortable and reliable
vehicles for daily routine all-weather operations (Airbus, Boeing and
others), there were many creative efforts to improve performance (aircraft
size, endurance, speed), minimize structural weight, provide necessary thrust,
and guarantee safe flight operations. Nowadays all these inventions assure the
high mobility of the modern human society in a global world. The aeronautical
challenges were drivers for many new technologies and methodologies
that are commonly used in other industries today.
In the last three decades, the requirements for the design of high-performance
flight control systems that enhance automation of flight, initiated a
number of ingenious technological developments. Flight control law design is
one of the areas where aeronautical engineers are pioneering new technologies.
During development (design and test) of flight control laws, engineers rely
on mathematical models. Inevitably such models cannot mimic all aspects of
a highly complex, physical plant as a modern high-performance jet airplane
and its environment (atmosphere, air traffic, etc.) with absolute fidelity. The
above quotation from Einstein describes the fundamental difficulty that control
engineers are facing, when striving the clearance of flight control laws on
basis of mathematical models.