An equivalent emulation method of gust response for flight tests

Abstract

The unpredictability of natural gusts usually brings some difficulties to the implementation of flight tests that required suitable gust conditions. To overcome this problem, a time-domain equivalent emulation method of aircraft gust response is proposed in this article. Based on the theoretical model, the aircraft gust responses are calculated, and the deflection command of control surfaces is determined in the time domain by solving the inverse problem of gust response. Instead of unpredictable gust excitation, the aircraft is manipulated to emulate the gust response through the deflection of control surfaces. Numerical simulations are conducted for two different aircraft configurations to validate this time-domain method, and the effects of different control surfaces on the emulation of aircraft gust responses are analyzed. The general principles of control surface selection for equivalent emulations are given, and emulations of the aircraft centroid motion, structure elastic vibration, and component loads caused by different types of gusts are realized.