Aeroservoelastic stability analysis for flexible aircraft based on a nonlinear coupled dynamic model

A unified theoretical aeroservoelastic stability analysis framework for flexible aircraft is established in this paper. This linearized state space model for stability analysis is based on nonlinear coupled dynamic equations, in which rigid and elastic motions of aircraft are both considered.The common body coordinate system is utilized as the reference frame in the deduction of dynamic equations, and significant deformations of flexible aircraft are also fully concerned without any excessive assumptions. Therefore, the obtained nonlinear coupled dynamic models can well reflect the special dynamic coupling mechanics of flexible aircraft. For aeroservoelastic stability analysis,the coupled dynamic equations are linearized around the nonlinear equilibrium state and together with a control system model to establish a state space model in the time domain. The methodology in this paper can be easily integrated into the industrial design process and complex structures.Numerical results for a complex flexible aircraft indicate the necessity to consider the nonlinear coupled dynamics and large deformation when dealing with aeroservoelastic stability for flexible aircraft.

Robust fault-tolerant control for wing flutter under actuator failure

Many control laws, such as optimal controller and classical controller, have seen their applications to suppressing the aeroelastic vibrations of the aeroelastic system. However, those control laws may not work effectively if the aeroelastic system involves actuator faults. In the current study for wing flutter of reentry vehicle, the effect of actuator faults on wing flutter system is rarely considered and few of the fault-tolerant control problems are taken into account. In this paper, we use the radial basis function neural network and the finite-time H_∞ adaptive fault-tolerant control technique to deal with the flutter problem of wings, which is affected by actuator faults, actuator saturation, parameter uncertainties and external disturbances. The theory of this article includes the modeling of wing flutter and fault-tolerant controller design. The stability of the finite-time adaptive fault-tolerant controller is theoretically proved. Simulation results indicate that the designed fault-tolerant flutter controller can effectively deal with the faults in the flutter system and can promptly suppress the wing flutter as well.

Aeroservoelastic modeling and analysis of a canard-configured air-breathing hypersonic vehicles

Air-breathing hypersonic vehicles （HSVs） are typically characterized by interactions of elasticity, propulsion and rigid-body flight dynamics, which may result in intractable aeroservoelastic problem. When canard is added, this problem would be even intensified by the introduction of low-frequency canard pivot mode. This paper concerns how the aeroservoelastic stability of a canard-configured HSV is affected by the pivot stiffnesses of all-moveable horizontal tail （HT） and canard. A wing/pivot system model is developed by considering the pivot torsional flexibility, fuselage vibration, and control input. The governing equations of the aeroservoelastic system are established by combining the equations of rigid-body motion, elastic fuselage model, wing/pivot system models and actuator dynamics. An unsteady aerodynamic model is developed by steady Shock-Expansion theory with an unsteady correction using local piston theory. A baseline controller is given to provide approximate inflight characteristics of rigid-body modes. The vehicle is trimmed for equilibrium state, around which the linearized equations are derived for stability analysis. A comparative study of damping ratios, closed-loop poles and responses are conducted with varying controller gains and pivot stiffnesses. Available bandwidth for control design is discussed and feasible region for pivot stiffnesses of HT and canard is given.

Active flutter suppression of a multiple-actuated-wing wind tunnel model

In this study, a multi-input/multi-output（MIMO） time-delay feedback controller is designed to actively suppress the flutter instability of a multiple-actuated-wing（MAW） wind tunnel model in the low subsonic flow regime. The unsteady aerodynamic forces of the MAW model are computed based on the doublet-lattice method（DLM）. As the first attempt, the conventional linear quadratic-Gaussian（LQG） controller is designed to actively suppress the flutter of the MAW model. However, because of the time delay in the control loop, the wind tunnel tests illustrate that the LQG-controlled MAW model has no guaranteed stability margins. To compensate the time delay, hence, a time-delay filter, approximated via the first-order Pade approximation, is added to the LQG controller. Based on the time-delay feedback controller, a new digital control system is constructed by using a fixed-point and embedded digital signal processor（DSP） of high performance. Then, a number of wind tunnel tests are implemented based on the digital control system.The experimental results show that the present time-delay feedback controller can expand the flutter boundary of the MAW model and suppress the flutter instability of the open-loop aeroelastic system effectively.

Gust response modeling and alleviation scheme design for an elastic aircraft

Time-domain approaches are presented for analysis of the dynamic response of aeroservoelastic systems to atmospheric gust excitations. The continuous and discrete gust inputs are defined in the time domain. The time-domain approach to continuous gust response uses a state-space formulation that requires the frequency-dependent aerodynamic coefficients to be approximated with the rational function of a Laplace variable. A hybrid method which combines the Fourier transform and time-domain approaches is used to calculate discrete gust response. The purpose of this approach is to obtain a time-domain state-space model without using rational function approximation of the gust columns. Three control schemes are designed for gust alleviation on an elastic aircraft, and three control surfaces are used: aileron, elevator and spoiler. The signals from the rate of pitch angle gyroscope or angle of attack sensor are sent to the elevator while the signals from accelerometers at the wing tip and center of gravity of the aircraft are sent to the aileron and spoiler, respectively. All the control laws are based on classical control theory. The results show that acceleration at the center of gravity of the aircraft and bending-moment at the wing-root section are mainly excited by rigid modes of the aircraft and the accelerations at the wing-tip are mainly excited by elastic modes of the aircraft. All the three control schemes can be used to alleviate the wing-root moments and the accelerations. The gust response can be alleviated using control scheme 3, in which the spoiler is used as a control surface, but the effects are not as good as those of control schemes 1 and 2.

Aeroelastic dynamic response of elastic aircraft with consideration of two-dimensional discrete gust excitation

Design loads generally require a one-dimensional discrete gust profile without consideration of the spanwise effect,and this profile cannot represent the true gust field exactly.For a high aspect ratio aircraft,two-dimensional gusts may cause critical load conditions,and approaches for calculating dynamic responses under two-dimensional discrete gust excitation are rarely presented.In this paper,a spanwise non-uniform vertical discrete gust field is established based on a onedimensional‘1-cos’gust profile in reference to a DARPA proposal,while frequency and hybrid approaches to the dynamic response analysis of flexible aircraft under this two-dimensional gust excitation are presented.Solution techniques have been applied to a high aspect ratio aircraft to assess the different response characteristics with a comparison between one-dimensional and two-dimensional discrete gust field conditions.The results show that the two-dimensional discrete gust model produces a higher bending moment than that of the one-dimensional condition.Therefore,the critical load conditions that are derived from the two-dimensional discrete gust for high aspect ratio aircraft should be seriously considered.According to the analysis,an active control scheme to alleviate the bending loads caused by the two-dimensional gust is designed,and alleviation effects in different gust conditions are compared.