Browsing by Subject "Aeroservoelasticity"
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Item Linear, Parameter-Varying Control of Aeroservoelastic Systems(2015-06) Moreno Chicunque, ClaudiaModern aircraft designers are adopting light-weight, high-aspect ratio flexible wings to improve performance and reduce operation costs. A technical challenge associated with these designs is that the large deformations in flight of the wings lead to adverse interactions between the aircraft aerodynamic forces and structural forces. These adverse interactions produce excessive vibrations that can degrade flying qualities and may result in severe structural damages or catastrophic failure. This dissertation is focused on the application of multivariable robust control techniques for suppression of these adverse interactions in flexible aircraft. Here, the aircraft coupled nonlinear equations of motion are represented in the linear, parameter-varying framework. These equations account for the coupled aerodynamics, rigid body dynamics, and deformable body dynamics of the aircraft. Unfortunately, the inclusion of this coupled dynamics results in high-order models that increase the computational complexity of linear, parameter-varying control techniques. This dissertation addresses three key technologies for linear, parameter-varying control of flexible aircraft: (i) linear, parameter-varying model reduction; (ii) selection of actuators and sensors for vibration suppression; and (iii) design of linear, parameter-varying controllers for vibration suppression. All of these three technologies are applied to an experimental research platform located at the University of Minnesota. The objective of this dissertation is to provide to the flight control community with a set of design methodologies to safely exploit the benefits of light-weight flexible aircraft.Item Robust Flutter Analysis for Aeroservoelastic Systems(2017-04) Kotikalpudi, AdityaThe dynamics of a flexible air vehicle are typically described using an aeroservoelastic model which accounts for interaction between aerodynamics, structural dynamics, rigid body dynamics and control laws. These subsystems can be individually modeled using a theoretical approach and experimental data from various ground tests can be combined into them. For instance, a combination of linear finite element modeling and data from ground vibration tests may be used to obtain a validated structural model. Similarly, an aerodynamic model can be obtained using computational fluid dynamics or simple panel methods and partially updated using limited data from wind tunnel tests. In all cases, the models obtained for these subsystems have a degree of uncertainty owing to inherent assumptions in the theory and errors in experimental data. Suitable uncertain models that account for these uncertainties can be built to study the impact of these modeling errors on the ability to predict dynamic instabilities known as flutter. This thesis addresses the methods used for modeling rigid body dynamics, structural dynamics and unsteady aerodynamics of a blended wing design called the Body Freedom Flutter vehicle. It discusses the procedure used to incorporate data from a wide range of ground based experiments in the form of model uncertainties within these subsystems. Finally, it provides the mathematical tools for carrying out flutter analysis and sensitivity analysis which account for these model uncertainties. These analyses are carried out for both open loop and controller in the loop (closed loop) cases.