Nonlinear instability suppression of closed-loop pilot-vehicle system with rate-limiting actuator based on anti-windup compensation

To solve the flight safety problem caused by nonlinear instabilities(category II pilot induced oscillations, PIOs) of the closed-loop pilot-vehicle system with rate-limiting actuator, the antiwindup(AW) compensation method to avoid category II PIOs is investigated. Firstly, the AW compensation method originally used for controlling input magnitude limited system is introduced, then this method is extended for controlling input rate-limiting system through a circle criterion theorem. Secondly, the establishment of the AW compensator is transformed into the solving of linear matrix inequalities. Finally, an AW compensator establishment algorithm for the closed-loop pilot-vehicle system with the rate-limiting actuator is obtained. The effectiveness of the AW compensation method to avoid category II PIOs is validated by time-domain simulations,and compared with rate-limited feedback(RLF) command rate compensation method. The results show that the AW compensation method can effectively suppress category II PIOs and maintain the nominal performance when the closed-loop pilot-vehicle system is normal. Unlike the command rate compensator which works upon system uninterruptedly, the AW compensation method affects the closed-loop pilot-vehicle system only when the rate-limiting of actuator is activated, so it is a novel PIO avoidance method.

An electromagnetic wave attenuation superposition structure for thin-layer plasma

This work proposes a new plasma super-phase gradient metasurfaces(PS-PGMs)structure,owing to the limitations of the thin-layer plasma for electromagnetic wave attenuation.Based on the cross-shaped surface unit configuration,we have designed the X-band absorbing structure through the dispersion control method.By setting up the Drude dispersion model in the computer simulation technology,the designed phase gradient metasurfaces structure is superposed over the plasma,and the PS-PGMs structure is constructed.The electromagnetic scattering characteristics of the new structure have been simulated,and the reflectance measurement has been carried out to verify the absorbing effect.The results demonstrate that the attenuation effect of the new structure is superior to that of the pure plasma structure,which invokes an improved attenuation effect from the thin layer plasma,thus enhancing the feasibility of applying the plasma stealth technology to the local stealth of the strong scattering part of a combat aircraft.

An intelligent approach for flight risk prediction under icing conditions

Flight risk prediction is significant in improving the flight crew's situational awareness because it allows them to adopt appropriate operation strategies to prevent risk expansion caused by abnormal conditions,especially aircraft icing conditions.The flight risk space representing the nonlinear mapping relations between risk degree and the three-dimensional commanded vector(commanded airspeed,commanded bank angle,and commanded vertical velocity)is developed to provide the crew with practical risk information.However,the construction of flight risk space by means of computational flight dynamics suffers from certain defects,including slow computing speed.Accordingly,an intelligent approach for flight risk prediction is proposed to address these defects based on neural networks.Radial Basis Function Neural Network(RBFNN)is optimized using Adaptive Particle Swarm Optimization(APSO).To optimize both the parameters and the structure of APSO-RBFNN,a fitness function containing the training accuracy and network structure size is proposed.Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the flight risk predicted by APSO-RBFNN is very close to that obtained via computational flight dynamics.The average error(RMSE)is less than 10^(-1).The approach achieves a speedup close to 1000x compared with computational flight dynamics.In addition,some flight upset and recovery cases are presented to illustrate the efficiency of the intelligent approach for flight risk prediction.

Quantitative assessment and visualization of flight risk induced by coupled multi-factor under icing conditions

Aircraft icing has been proven to be one of the most serious threats to flight safety. During the analysis of flight risk under icing conditions, quantitative assessment and visualization of flight risk are quite essential as they provide safe manipulation strategies in intricate conditions.However, they are rarely studied. Since the icing flight accidents are the result of the coupling of multiple unfavorable factors, in present study, we have proposed a method to quantitatively assess flight risk induced by multi-factor coupling under icing conditions by Monte-Carlo simulation and multivariate extreme value theory. The results demonstrate that the flight risk probability increases with the rise of unfavorable factors. Besides, a flight risk visualization method named flight safety window has been presented to build the flight risk distribution cloud maps in different complex conditions. The cloud maps show that the icing would give rise to atrophy of the safety scope, and the consequence would be even more severe when coupled with other more unfavorable factors. The proposed methods in this study would be useful in flight risk analysis under icing conditions and can enhance the pilot's situational awareness in selecting correct strategies within the safety zone to avoid unsafe manipulation.

Conceptual design and preliminary experiment of icing risk management and protection system

Icing is one of the main external environmental factors that causes aircraft to lose control.The flight safety assurance system under icing condition is particularly important.However,most of the systems do not consider the coupling characteristics of aerodynamics and flight dynamics of icing aircraft.This will affect the accuracy of the calculation results.Besides,the icing risk management system helps the pilot to realize the possible dangers in advance and perform correct maneuvers,based on quantitative assessment and visualization methods of flight risk.The envelope protection system realizes flight safety guarantee based on the real-time boundary protection method of key flight parameters.Finally,based on distributed simulation technology,a flight simulator was used as a platform to integrate the icing risk management system and envelope protection system to realize man-in-the-loop simulation.Two fictional but historically motivated icing scenarios are designed to test the system,and the results demonstrate that the icing risk management and protection system would be useful for aviation safety and can also be used for pilot training and reproducing flight accidents to find the causes.

Aircraft nonlinear stability analysis and multidimensional stability region estimation under icing conditions

Icing is one of the crucial factors that could pose great threat to flight safety,and thus research on stability and stability region of aircraft safety under icing conditions is significant for control and flight.Nonlinear dynamical equations and models of aerodynamic coefficients of an aircraft are set up in this paper to study the stability and stability region of the aircraft under an icing condition.Firstly,the equilibrium points of the iced aircraft system are calculated and analyzed based on the theory of differential equation stability.Secondly,according to the correlation theory about equilibrium points and the stability region,this paper estimates the multidimensional stability region of the aircraft,based on which the stability regions before and after icing are compared.Finally,the results are confirmed by the time history analysis.The results can give a reference for stability analysis and envelope protection of the nonlinear system of an iced aircraft.

Hepatic SIRT6 deficit promotes liver tumorigenesis in the mice models

SIRT6 belongs to class III sirtuin family with NAD+-dependent histone deacetylase activities and controls multiple processes including aging,metabolism and inflammation.In recent years,increasing studies showed tumor suppressor role of SIRT6 in HCC development.We established a two-stage DEN followed CC14 induced liver carcinogenesis in the hepatic-specific SIRT6 HKO mice models and found that hepatic S1RT6 deficit significantly promotes liver injury and liver cancer through inhibition of the ERK1/2 pathway.SIRT6 was compensatory up-regulated in mice tumor tissues and human HCC cells and overexpressed SIRT6 inhibits tumor growth both in vitro and in vivo.Taken together,we provide a useful mouse model for delineating the molecular pathways involved in chronic liver diseases and primary liver cancer and suggest that SIRT6 can be a promising target for HCC therapies.