Angle of Attack and Load Factor Limiting in Fighter Aircraft using Command Governors

Modern fighter aircraft require maximum control performance in order to have the upper hand in a dogfight or when they have to outmaneuver an enemy missile. Therefore pilots must be able to maneuver the aircraft very close to the limit of what it is capable of while at the same time focus on the tactical tasks of the mission. To enable this, modern flight control systems have automatic systems for angle of attack and load factor limiting. One such design technique is reference or command governors. In this paper we investigate different ways of designing command governors for angle of attack and load factor limiting in in fighter aircraft flight control systems. We discuss different design approaches and their properties and implement one selected design in Saab's JAS 39 Gripen fighter aircraft simulation environment.