Flight Mechanics Project

Longitudinal flight control design for an F-4 Phantom model. I tuned PID gains with a genetic algorithm and cut settling time from 29.8 s to 0.66 s.

I developed and analyzed P, PI, PD, and PID controllers in MATLAB for an F-4 Phantom longitudinal dynamics model. I tested each one across four operating conditions, including degraded stability and supersonic flight. I designed robust PID controllers using MATLAB's pidtune and a genetic algorithm, then compared transient response, stability margins, crossover frequency, and actuator control effort. I also wrote a custom genetic algorithm routine to tune the gains for minimum settling time. That brought settling time from 29.8 seconds down to 0.66 seconds, roughly a 98 percent improvement, while I kept an eye on robustness and the tradeoffs that came with it.