Vehicle control loops and interfaces

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:

• receiving sensor data from one or more sensors of an aircraft, wherein a component of the aircraft is malfunctioning;
• determining a state of the aircraft based on the received sensor data, wherein the state of the aircraft is a degraded flight state due to the component that is malfunctioning;
• and
• operating the aircraft according to the degraded flight state, wherein operating the aircraft according to the degraded flight state comprises:
• modifying one or more processing control loops based on the degraded flight state, the one or more processing control loops configured to generate actuator commands according to a flight state of the aircraft and signals based on inputs from vehicle control interfaces;
• and
• generating an actuator command by applying the degraded flight state and a signal based on an input from a vehicle control interface to the modified one or more processing control loops.

A system comprising:

• a set of one or more processors;
• and
• a computer readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed by the set of one or more processors, cause the set of one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
• receiving sensor data from one or more sensors of an aircraft, wherein a component of the aircraft is malfunctioning;
• determining a state of the aircraft based on the received sensor data, wherein the state of the aircraft is a degraded flight state due to the component that is malfunctioning;
• and
• operating the aircraft according to the degraded flight state, wherein operating the aircraft according to the degraded flight state comprises:
• modifying one or more processing control loops based on the degraded flight state, the one or more processing control loops configured to generate actuator commands according to a flight state of the aircraft and signals based on inputs from vehicle control interfaces, wherein:
• modifying the one or more processing control loops comprises modifying an outer processing control loop configured to apply a set of control laws to aircraft trajectory values based on inputs from the vehicle control interface, the outer processing control loop outputting allowable aircraft trajectory values according to the set of control laws;
• and
• the set of control laws are selected from sets of control laws according to the degraded flight state of the aircraft;
• and
• generating an actuator command by applying the degraded flight state and a signal based on an input from a vehicle control interface to the modified one or more processing control loops.