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Gain-Scheduled Pitch Autopilot

Fly an aircraft's pitch-attitude autopilot across the flight envelope and watch a fixed-gain controller go unstable at high dynamic pressure and sluggish at low dynamic pressure — then switch on gain scheduling and see the response stay consistent.

Aerospace Engineering & Orbital Mechanics3DAdvanced60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted

A pitch-attitude-hold autopilot commands the elevator to track a commanded pitch angle, but the aircraft's own control power changes with dynamic pressure — the same elevator deflection produces a much bigger pitching moment at high speed near sea level than at low speed high up. This simulator integrates a real short-period pitch model driven by an exponential atmosphere and lets you fly the flight envelope with airspeed and altitude sliders while a fixed-gain PD controller fights to hold attitude. Switch gain scheduling on to divide the controller gains by the live dynamic-pressure ratio and watch the same aircraft track its commanded pitch with consistent, well-damped response everywhere in the envelope instead of oscillating at one end and going sluggish at the other.

⚙ Under the hood

Fly an aircraft pitch-attitude autopilot across the flight envelope: with fixed gains the same controller oscillates at high dynamic pressure and goes sluggish at low dynamic pressure, while gain scheduling divides the gains by the live dynamic-pressure ratio to keep the response consistent everywhere.

control-systemsaerospacegain-schedulingautopilotflight-dynamicsfeedback-loop

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install