20th Anniversary Celebrations of the National Control Law Team

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News and Events, NAL, Bangalore

National Control law team of LCA is a very unique team formed in 1992. The team is the result of a truly great visionary Dr APJ Abdul Kalam the then SA to RM. The team took up the challenge of building fly-by-wire control laws for an unstable fighter aircraft for the first time in India. This talented and enthusiastic team celebrated its 20th Anniversary on 2nd June 2012 in Dr. Valluri Auditorium, National Aerospace Laboratories.

The celebrations started with an invocation by Dr. Girija Gopalaratnam, Acting Head, Flight Mechanics and Control Division. Mr. Shyam Chetty, Acting Director, NAL, extended a warm welcome on behalf of CSIR-NAL and National Control Law Team to all the invitees from DRDO, ADA, HAL and CSIR-NAL for this memorable day. He narrated the circumstances that had led to the formation of the National Control Law Team. A global tender was floated in the early 1992 seeking consultancy support from reputed airframe houses abroad for the design and development of fly-by-wire control laws for LCA. When no favorable response was received, Dr. Kalam immediately formed an empowered committee headed by late Prof. I G Sharma of School of Automation -IISC, Dr. Vidyasagar the then Director, CAIR-DRDO and many others to scout for suitable talent across various IITs, IISc, R&D institutions and Public Sector units. Since it was very clear that no single institution in India could claim to have required strength, experience / expertise to carry out this highly complex, safety critical and multi disciplinary task. This talent search lead to the formation of National Control Law Team very popularly known as CLAW Team at CSIR-NAL, with Dr. S Srinathkumar as founder Project Director. Initially team members were drawn from CSIR-NAL, CAIR and ADA along with one test pilot Wg. Cdr. BB Misra from IAF.

Mr. Shyam Chetty informed that first flight of LCA took place on 4th January 2001 and said that 9 years had elapsed from the time the team was formed. He justified the time taken for this task by comparing it with similar programs in the world. Mr. Shyam Chetty mentioned that over 1900 successful flights on 13 prototypes including the 2 seater trainer and naval variant have been flown by 19 IAF pilots and all of them are very appreciative of the performance of the flight control system and control laws including flying qualities and the ease with which the aircraft handled. Mr. Shyam Chetty emphasised that the LCA program has reached an important milestone in achieving Initial Operation Clearance (IOC) as this will enable the IAF’s squadron pilots to fly TEJAS. He also reminded that the team still had some distance to go before the aircraft got its Final Operation Clearance (FOC). He concluded his address by saying that the expertise and experience gained by the team over the years in this niche strategic area has been shared and found useful by all other major national aerospace programmes.

Prof. Samir K Brahmachari, DG-SCIR graced the occasion as the chief guest. In his address, he quoted that, “very often we say, we can’t do things together and when people do things together, we say because they can’t do it alone”. Therefore, it needed no less than Dr. Kalam the visionary to mobilize this team. He said, NAL is very important for CSIR, and Aeronautics Research is very important for the country. Therefore, he visited NAL many times since he had taken over as DG-CSIR to encourage the team NAL. He mentioned that he was glad to see Dr. Mashelkar’s vision of a CSIR civil aircraft flying in Indian skies had been taken up by NAL. Prof. Samir K Brahmachari stated that such celebrations allows us to go back in years, sit and think under what circumstances these collaborations were built, and also allows us to think about new collaborations that need to be built so that they can be celebrated 20 years from now. He informed the august audience about the CSIR’s vision document and the paradigm shifts that CSIR has initiated to build a new CSIR. He suggested DRDO / ADA / NAL management to earmark part of the project funds to address futuristic projects and dedicate a team of youngsters who will think differently on realizing futuristic aeronautical needs of the country. He again reiterated CSIR’s commitment to partner the strategic sector organisations in meeting the nation’s requirements. He stated that CSIR-NAL should continue to take the initiative in conducting cutting edge research in Aerospace Science and Engineering of tomorrow.

On this momentous occasion, DG-CSIR handed over a CD containing the IOC version of the Control Laws and Airdata Algorithms to AVM RKS Bhadauria, ACAS (Projects) and to Mr. P S Subramanyam, Director ADA. Air Marshal R K Sharma, DCAS who had initially promised to be part of the celebrations has instead sent a message. The message reads, “I sincerely appreciate the efforts of CSIR-NAL and congratulate them for reaching the important (IOC) milestone. You and your team have done an outstanding job over the years, working with scientific diligence and above all confidence tempered with humility. I would like you to know that every time I flew the LCA, I knew, that the CLAW which is the heart of the system, is robust and will not fail, that belief alone made me fly confidently. I believe that is a sentiment shared by the other LCA Test Pilot’s as well. I wish I could have made it to the function, sadly, I can’t”.

AVM RKS Bhadauria, in his remarks said that it was a momentous occasion because of the IOC – CD that he had received. He mentioned that the IOC-CD he was holding could be the most valuable CD in the country. He remembered that as a test pilot of Tejas, he had close interactions with the team and had a great confidence in the team. He mentioned that CLAW was never an issue in the planning of flight testing. He stated that to the best of his knowledge TEJAS was the only fly-by-wire fighter aircraft in the world that had test flown over 1900 sorties without even a single major problem. He also appreciated that the team had contributed in many other areas apart from CLAW such as Notch filter design, PID and so on. He concluded his speech by asking the team to continue in the same manner in future.

Mr. P.S. Subramanyam, Director ADA in his remarks informed the audience that, he had started interactions with the CLAW team as Project Director, IFCS-LCA. He recollected that right from the beginning the team had met all the deliverables on time without any delay. He appreciated that the team had never compromised on safety even under tremendous pressures from program management and the outcome of this commitment was the robust and fault free control laws. He was confident that the team would continue the work with the same commitment in the future. Apart from designing the control laws, he said the team had contributed a lot to TEJAS. He remembered the participation and significant contributions of the CLAW team in clearance activities at Iron-Bird. He said the team showed the same level of commitment and help in designing and clearing the robust redundancy management algorithm of FCS. He also acknowledged the outstanding contributions of the team in the area of simulation and modelling.

During the celebrations, the National Control Law Team showcased the achievements of CLAW through a small technical session. Two presentations were made in this session by CLAW team members. Dr Abhay Pashilkar, Scientist, NAL made a presentation on “Modelling and Simulation activities of Tejas”. In his presentation, Dr. Pashilkar brought out the flight dynamic analysis of an unstable aircraft, aircraft simulation including subsystems modeling and also explained the challenges faced in the complex modelling of aircraft wake. Later Dr. Vijay V Patel, Scientist, ADA made a presentation on “Design and Development of Flight Control Laws for LCA”. In his presentation, Dr. Patel outlined various activities of the CLAW team. He highlighted the complexities of this airframe such as local pitch up, leading to small time to double, large variation in centre of gravity and many more issues that posed interesting problems to the designers.

In his presidential address, Dr. Kota Harinarayana former Program Director-LCA stated that National Control Law Team is “a jewel in the crown of the LCA program”. He said, CLAW apart from Stability Augmentation provided predictable Handling Qualities, Carefree & Boundary Limiting features leading to Safe operations and served as an ideal weapon system platform. CLAW is a crucial link between the airframe and the pilot. He brought to the notice of the audience that CLAW technology is in the prohibited list of US and other advanced nations. National Control law Team under able leadership of Dr. S Srinathkumar and subsequently Mr. Shyam Chetty ably assisted by Dr. Girish Deodare and team demonstrated high standards of competence, professionalism, team spirit, dedication and modesty. They had delivered a product that continues to receive accolades from all experts in aerospace engineering and from all the pilots who have flown LCA. He remembered his interactions with US pilots during IFS testing and quoted one of the F16 pilot’s statement “F16 airframe flies better with LCA control laws”. He concluded his speech by hoping the team would grow in numbers so that it could to contribute for many other national programs.

As part of the celebrations, the team felicitated the dignitaries in the audience who directly or indirectly contributed to the National Control law Team’s success by presenting mementos. Dr. S Srinathkumar, founder project director – CLAW, Dr. T S Prahlad, Former Director –NAL, Airmarshal Rajkumar (Retd), Mr. G Elengovan – CC R&D (Aeronautics and Avionics), DRDO and many other dignitaries were present at the function. Mr. P V S Murthy, Scientist, NAL & Member of CLAW team gave the formal vote of thanks. He thanked all the dignitaries on and off the dias and all the invitees for their august presence at the function. The entire celebrations were compered in style by Dr. Amitab Saraf, Scientist, ADA along with Dr. Jatinder Singh, Scientist, NAL.

On the same day, immediately after the function, DG – CSIR inaugurated the new “Centre of Excellence in Flight Mechanics & Control” building, built adjacent to the Systems Building of National Aerospace Laboratories. The building hosts modern facilities including the Augmented Engineering Environment (AEE) and Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) Laboratory.

 

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Mr. Shyam Chetty mentioned that over 1900 successful flights on 13 prototypes including the 2 seater trainer and naval variant have been flown by 19 IAF pilots and all of them are very appreciative of the performance of the flight control system and control laws including flying qualities and the ease with which the aircraft handled.


He stated that to the best of his knowledge TEJAS was the only fly-by-wire fighter aircraft in the world that had test flown over 1900 sorties without even a single major problem.