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Meeting	ACGS Committee Meeting 131 - Newport News, VA - October 2023
Agenda Location	6 SUBCOMMITTEE C – AVIONICS AND SYSTEM INTEGRATION 6.2 Perspectives on Computation and Flight Control
Title	Perspectives on Computation and Flight Control
Presenter	Robert Stengel
Affiliation	Princeton University
Available Downloads*	presentation
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Abstract	Over the past several decades, advances in flight control systems have been driven by remarkable improvements in computation for off-line analysis and real-time control. The first digital-fly-by-wire (DFBW) control system was based on the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) and flew crew on Apollo 7 in 1968. The Apollo 11 Lunar Module landed on the Moon under control of an AGC in 1969. The AGC was the heart of the first DFBW for conventional aircraft, the NASA DFBW F-8 that flew in 1972. Taking the AGC as the keystone of digital flight, we follow the course of DFBW development up to the present time. A career with NASA, USAF, Draper Lab, TASC, and Princeton coincided with the development of DFBW. The talk touches on projects, analysis, and computation, beginning with the Apollo Program, then research on fighter and helicopter dynamics, variable-stability aircraft, system identification, stochastic robustness, nonlinear dynamic inversion, air traffic management, and adaptive control. Predictions of what comes next begin with a 1987 article on general aviation, a 2023 update, and conclude with brief comments on urban air mobility and intelligent control system design.