Stability Analysis of Nonlinear Models of Nose Landing Gear Shimmy

Shimmy can reduce the service life of the nose landing gear, affect ride comfort, and even cause fuselage damage leading to aircraft crashes. Taking a light aircraft as the research object, the torsional freedom of landing gear around strut axis and lateral deformation of tire are considered. Since the landing gear shimmy is a nonlinear system, a nonlinear mechanical model of the front landing gear shimmy is established. Sobol index method is proposed to analyze the influence of structural parameters on the stability region of the nose landing gear, and Routh-Huritz criterion is used to verify the reliability of the analysis results of Sobol index method. We analyse the effect of torsional stiffness of strut, caster length, rated initial tire inflation pressure, rake angle, and vertical force on the stability region of theront landing gear. And the research shows that the optimization of the torsional stiffness of the strut and the caster length of the nose landing gear should be emphasized, and the influence of vertical force on the stability region of the nose landing gear should be paid attention to.

GA-Based Model Predictive Control of Semi-Active Landing Gear

Semi-active landing gear can provide good performance of both landing impact and taxi situation, and has the ability for adapting to various ground conditions and operational conditions. A kind of Nonlinear Model Predictive Control algorithm （NMPC） for semi-active landing gears is developed in this paper. The NMPC algorithm uses Genetic Algorithm （GA） as the optimization technique and chooses damping performance of landing gear at touch down to be the optimization object. The valve＇s rate and magnitude limitations are also considered in the controller＇s design. A simulation model is built for the semi-active landing gear＇s damping process at touchdown. Drop tests are carried out on an experimental passive landing gear systerm to validate the parameters of the simulation model. The result of numerical simulation shows that the isolation of impact load at touchdown can be significantly improved compared to other control algorithms. The strongly nonlinear dynamics of semi-active landing gear coupled with control valve＇s rate and magnitude limitations are handled well with the proposed controller.

Landing gear noise control using perforated fairings

Landing gears of commercial aircraft make an important contribution to total aircraft noise in the approach configuration. Using fairings to shield components from high speed impingement reduces noise. Furthermore, perforating these fairings has been confirmed by flight tests to further enable noise reduction. Following an earlier fundamental study of the application of perforated fairings, a study has been performed to investigate and optimize the benefits of bleeding air through landing gear fairings. By means of wind tunnel tests, an aerodynamic and acoustic survey has been performed on a simplified generic main landing gear to explore the influence of （perforated） fairings on the lower part of the gear. The results show that for this specific case, the application of impermeable fairings reduces noise in the mid- and high frequency range by shielding sharp edged components from high velocity impingement. However, below 1 kHz the noise is shown to increase significantly. Application of the perforations is shown to diminish this low frequency increase whilst maintaining the reduction in the mid- and high frequency range. The aerodynamic and acoustic measurements point in the direction of the separated flow of the fairings interacting with the downstream gear components responsible for the low frequency noise increase. Bleeding of the air through the fairings reduces the large scale turbulence in the proximity of these components and hence diminishes the low frequency noise increase.

Design and Dynamics Analysis of Anti-skid Braking System for Aircraft with Four-wheel Bogie Landing Gears

In asymmetric conditions,the movement and loads of left/right wheels or front/back wheels of the aircraft with multi-wheel or four-wheel bogie landing gears are inconsistent.There are few open literatures related to anti-skid braking system for multi-wheels due to technology blockade.In China,the research on multi-channel control and non-equilibrium regulation has just started,and the design of multi-channel control system for anti-skid braking,the simulation of asymmetry taxiing under braking are not studied.In this paper,a dynamics model of ground movement for aircraft with four-wheel bogie landing gears is established for braking simulation, considering the six-degree-of-freedom aircraft body and the movement of bogies and wheels.A multi-channel anti-skid braking system is designed for the wheels of the main landing gears with four-wheel bogies.The eight wheels on left and right landing gears are divided into four groups,and each group is controlled via one channel.The cross protection and self-locked protection modules are added between different channels.A multi-channel anti-skid braking system with slip-ratio control or with slip-velocity control is established separately.Based on the aircraft dynamics model,aircraft braking to stop with anti-skid control on dry runway and on wet runway are simulated.The simulation results demonstrate that in asymmetric conditions,added with cross protection and self-locked protection modules,the slip-ratio-controlled braking system can automatically regulate brake torque to avoid deep slipping and correct aircraft course.The proposed research has reference value for improving brake control effect on wet runway.

Performance Analysis on Retractable Landing Gear and Design of Ground Test System

Landing gears are one of the key components for large or middle unmanned aerial vehicles,and their working performances directly affect flying security and aircraft taking-off and landing performance.Thus,it is meaningful to study the retraction system.Based on CATIA and ADAMS software platforms,a virtual model of landing gear retraction system is built for performance test,and then dynamic simulation is carried out.Afterwards,a test system for landing gear retraction is established,and the test data are compared with the results acquired from dynamics simulation.The main factors which affect the dynamic performance of retractable landing gear are analyzed emphatically.The simulation results show that aerodynamic load has an impact on retraction time,the mass force affects extension process,and the oil hole size of hydraulic actuator has an effect on both retraction time and extension time.

Deployment Reliability Test and Assessment for Landing Gear of Chang' E-3 Probe

Chang'E-3 probe incorporates four landing gears to assure the soft-landing,which are stowed while launching and deployed after separated from rocket. Deployment reliability is quite crucial for this mission. The deployment reliability test( DRT) method and assessment method were developed in this paper. Then DRT was conducted and the deployment reliability estimate of Chang'E-3probe was used to verify the proposed methods.

PARAMETRIC MODELING OF COMPONENT LIBRARY FOR LANDING GEAR BASED ON CATIA/CAA

The design of landing gear is complicated due to the numerous considered elements.And the initial elements related to each other can also be influenced by different factors.Landing gear design often involves a very large variety of configurations,especially in the conceptual design phase.However,traditional method costs more time to complete the whole procedure for suitable configurations of landing gears.Therefore,the parametric modeling of component library for landing gear based on computer aided three-dimensional interface application/component application architecutre(CATIA/CAA)is proposed.According to the analysis of the characteristics of landing gear components,a method is presented to extract the primary parameters of landing gear components so that a systematic classification can be established.Further,the related theories and methods,including receiving geometrical parameters of the components and updating the parametrical model,displaying the component parts,are also illustrated.Finally,the development technology for component library is explained.The proposed modeling method can improve the efficiency of the whole design cycle for landing gear.

Reliability Design for the Landing Gear of Chang'E-3 Probe

Landing gear is one of the important components of Chang'E-3 Probe.The device was used to absorb the impact energy of Chang'E-3 Probe during the landing process.After landing on the moon,it can support the lander steadily for a long time.In order to assure the reliability of the landing gear and deal with the extremely severe landing conditions,many reliability measures were adopted in the design procedure,such as selection of cushion materials,optimization of mechanism configuration,design of deployment mode,allocation of buffer force and control of its variation.The successful landing on the moon of Chang'E-3 Probe has completely verified the high reliability of the landing gear.

Cable-driven legged landing gear for unmanned helicopter:Prototype design,optimization and performance assessment

Unmanned helicopters equipped with adaptive landing gear will dramatically extend their application especially in dealing with challenging terrains.This study presents a novel cable-driven legged landing gear(CLG)with differential transmission for unmanned helicopters in complex landing environments.To obtain the preferred configuration of the legged mechanism,a multi-objective optimization framework for the CLG is constructed by concurrently considering terrain adaptability,landing stability and reasonable linkage of internal forces.The non-dominated sorting genetic algorithmⅡis employed to numerically acquire the optimal scale parameters that guide the mechanical design of the CLG.An unmanned helicopter prototype equipped with the devised CLG is developed with key performance assessment.Experimental results show that the devised CLG can provide energy-efficient support over uneven terrains(totally driven torque demand less than 0.1 N m)in quasi-static landing tests,and favorable terrain adaptability(posture fluctuation of the fuselage less than±1°)in unknown slope landing tests.These exhibited merits give the proposed CLG the potential to enhance the landing performance of future aircraft in extreme environments.

Dynamics Model of Carrier-based Aircraft Landing Gears Landed on Dynamic Deck

In order to study the carrier-based aircraft landing laws landed on the carrier, the dynamics model of carrier-based aircraft landing gears landed on dynamic deck is built. In this model, the interactions of the carrier-based aircraft landing attitude and the damping force acting on landing gears are considered, and the influence of dynamic deck is introduced into the model through the deck normal vectors. The wheel-deck coordinate system is put forward to solve the complex simulation problem of force-onwheel which comes from the dynamic deck. At last, by simulation, it is demonstrated that the model can be applied to landing attitude when the carrier-based aircraft is landing on the dynamic deck, it is also proved that the model is comprehensive and suitable for any abnormal landing situation.

Whole-process design and experimental validation of landing gear lower drag stay with global/local linked driven optimization strategy

Landing gear lower drag stay is a key component which connects fuselage and landing gear and directly effects the safety and performance of aircraft takeoff and landing. To effectively design the lower drag stay and reduce the weight of landing gear, Global/local Linked Driven Optimization Strategy(GLDOS) was developed to conduct the overall process design of lower drag stay in respect of optimization thought. The whole-process optimization involves two stages of structural conceptual design and detailed design. In the structural conceptual design, the landing gear lower drag stay was globally topologically optimized by adopting multiple starting points algorithm. In the detailed design, the local size and shape of landing gear lower drag stay were globally optimized by the gradient optimization strategy. The GLDOS method adopts different optimization strategies for different optimization stages to acquire the optimum design effect. Through the experimental validation, the weight of the optimized lower dray stay with the developed GLDOS is reduced by 16.79% while keeping enough strength and stiffness, which satisfies the requirements of engineering design under the typical loading conditions. The proposed GLDOS is validated to be accurate and efficient in optimization scheme and design cycles. The efforts of this paper provide a whole-process optimization approach regarding different optimization technologies in different design phases, which is significant in reducing structural weight and enhance design tp wid 1 precision for complex structures in aircrafts.

Optimum design and experiment of composite leaf spring landing gear for electric aircraft

The composite leaf spring landing gear of an electric aircraft is optimized.With the strength and workability as constraints and the minimum structural weight as an objective,the two-stage optimization of the leaf spring landing gear with glass fiber unidirectional prepreg is carried out using a genetic algorithm,namely,the optimization of continuous thickness of layup,and the optimization of the layup sequence and discrete thickness.In the optimization process,the ground loads are calculated according to the structural stiffness of each chromosome,thus the stiffness constraints are relaxed,and the optimization results are compared with those using stiffness constraints.The static experiment verification reveals that the numerical simulation and experimental results are consistent,that is,the optimized leaf spring meets the strength requirements.The results show that the leaf spring landing gear based on two-stage optimization method achieves the objective of weight reduction.

Bifurcation analysis of dual-sidestay landing gear locking performance considering joint clearance

Sidestay lock mechanism is an important part of landing gear system,and the locking performance can be analyzed based on changes in its stability.However,during numerical continuation analysis of fully-rigid dual-sidestay landing gear without clearance,it has been found that the appearance of bifurcation points does not necessarily imply that both sidestay links can be locked synchronously.This problem reveals the limitations of fully-rigid model with ideally-articulated in solving dual-sidestay mechanisms with extremely high motion sensitivity.Therefore,this study proposes a bifurcation analysis method for synchronous locking of dual-sidestay landing gears,which takes into consideration the joint clearance.For in-depth analysis of this problem,we initially build kinematic and mechanical models of a landing gear mechanism that consider joint clearance.Then,the models are solved based on continuation.The fundamental causes of synchronous locking are discussed in detail,and the number of bifurcation points is found to be closely related to whether the landing gear is completely locked.Finally,the effects of structural parameters on the synchronous locking are analyzed,and the feasible region of parameters satisfying synchronous locking condition is given,which agrees well with the test results.

IDENTIFICATION OF NONLINEAR PROPERTIES OF AN AIRCRAFT LANDING GEAR SHOCK STRUT

A simple but realistic method for identifying nonlinear stiffness and damp-ing of an air-oil shock strut widely used in aircraft is developed.In the method a powerseries expansion is used to niodel the nonlinear dynamic properties of the strut. and after introducing new variables lhe nonlinear identitication problem can be reduced to alinear one with unknown linear paranieters. An unbiased, efficient and consistentestimator for the vector of the linear parameters is obtained under conditions of mini-mizing the sum of squared residuals which is assumed to be stationary and uncorrelatedwith the observed data.The order and the most effective independent variables in themodel are detennined by the criterion of residual series correlation infonnation entropyand the procedure of best subset regression, respectively. Experiinent demonstrates thatthe results are quite satisfactory, and the method developed is realistic, which can beused to study the dynamic properties of a strut in full detail.

SIMULATION OF LARGE CIVIL AIRCRAFT LANDING RESPONSE UNDER CONSIDERATIONS OF FLEXIBLE AIRFRAME

To evaluate the landing response of the large civil aircraft in the conceptual design phase , a method for simulating aircraft landing is given.The model for the shock absorber is investigated.The flexible airframe model is established using finite element model ( FEM ) to analyze its modes.Then , the whole aircraft model with flexible airframe is made for the multibody simulation.Tail-down , two-point , three-point and sideslip landing scenarios are studied.The influence on the landing performance considering mode superposition of the flexible airframe is analyzed.Both longitudinal and spanwise positions of the main landing gear are changed to research the influence on the landing performance.Results show that the method is feasible.The shock absorber axial force of the main landing gear with the flexible airframe is smaller than that of rigid airframe.The number of mode superposition and the position of main landing gear can influence the landing response.

Control Research for a Small Fixed-Wing UAV DuringGround Taxiing

Ground taxiing is the key process of take-off and landing for a tricycle-undercarriage unmanned aerial vehicle( UAV). Nonlinear model of a sample UAV is established based on stiffness and damping model of landing gears and tires taken into account. Then lateral nonlinear model is linearized and state space equations are deduced by using nose wheel and ruder as inputs and lateral states as outputs. Adaptive internal model control( AIMC) is proposed and applied to lateral control based on decoupled and linearized dynamic model during ground taxiing process. Different control strategies are analyzed and compared by simulations,and then a combined control strategy of nose wheel steering with holding and rudder control is given. Hardware in loop simulations( HILS) proves the validity of the controller designed.

Modeling and experimental validation of vertical landing reusable launch vehicle under symmetric landing conditions

This paper illustrates the dynamic modeling,experimental validation of Reusable Launch Vehicle under symmetric landing mode.Firstly,a new quasi-3D dynamic landing model of vehicle under 2-2 and 1-2-1 symmetric landing mode is established,which can predict the plane motion of the main body and the spatial motion of landing struts and footpads.The strut force,footpad-ground contact force and the liquid spring damper are also included in the model.Secondly,the landing impact experiments are performed for 2-2 and 1-2-1 symmetric landing mode.The main and auxiliary strut force are obtained,along with the force-stroke diagram of damper.By comparing with experimental data,the accuracy of simulation model is verified.It is found that the simulation model possesses good match with tested responses in damping stroke and main strut force.The simulation and experiment also indicate the same trend in auxiliary strut force and main body acceleration.The main discrepancies attribute to the simplified structural flexibility and nonlinear contact。

Control strategies for aircraft airframe noise reduction

With the development of low-noise aircraft engine, airframe noise now represents a major noise source during the commercial aircraft＇s approach to landing phase. Noise control efforts have therefore been extensively focused on the airframe noise problems in order to further reduce aircraft overall noise. In this review, various control methods explored in the last decades for noise reduction on airframe components including high-lift devices and landing gears are summarized. We introduce recent major achievements in airframe noise reduction with passive control methods such as fairings, deceleration plates, splitter plates, acoustic liners, slat cove cover and side-edge replacements, and then discuss the potential and control mechanism of some promising active flow control strategies for airframe noise reduction, such as plasma technique and air blowing/suction devices. Based on the knowledge gained throughout the extensively noise control testing, a few design concepts on the landing gear, high-lift devices and whole aircraft are provided for advanced aircraft low-noise design. Finally, discussions and suggestions are given for future research on airframe noise reduction.

Pre-locate net for object detection in high-resolution images

Small-object detection has long been a challenge.High-megapixel cameras are used to solve this problem in industries.However,current detectors are inefficient for high-resolution images.In this work,we propose a new module called Pre-Locate Net,which is a plug-and-play structure that can be combined with most popular detectors.We inspire the use of classification ideas to obtain candidate regions in images,greatly reducing the amount of calculation,and thus achieving rapid detection in high-resolution images.Pre-Locate Net mainly includes two parts,candidate region classification and behavior classification.Candidate region classification is used to obtain a candidate region,and behavior classification is used to estimate the scale of an object.Different follow-up processing is adopted according to different scales to balance the variance of the network input.Different from the popular candidate region generation method,we abandon the idea of regression of a bounding box and adopt the concept of classification,so as to realize the prediction of a candidate region in the shallow network.We build a high-resolution dataset of aircraft and landing gears covering complex scenes to verify the effectiveness of our method.Compared to state-of-the-art detectors(e.g.,Guided Anchoring,Libra-RCNN,and FASF),our method achieves the best m AP of 94.5 on 1920×1080 images at 16.7 FPS.