Adaptive Lateral Flight Control with Active Flutter Suppression for Aeroservoelastic Aircraft Systems

Abstract

Flutter and gust disturbances have long been a problem for the practical operation of high performance aircraft. In addition, a new generation of high performance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being developed that utilize lightweight and flexible structures in order to increase performance. Such performance enhancements include longer flight times, higher altitude missions and larger payload capability. Because of these emerging technologies, active flutter and gust suppression is rapidly becoming a requirement. This paper presents and active flutter suppression control scheme integrated into the flight dynamics adaptive control. The overall system is able to track aircraft flight trajectories while simultaneously rejecting flutter and gust disturbances. By intelligently integrating the stability analysis, the flutter suppression is designed in such a way that it does not interfere with the flight tracking control.