Concurrent Active Piezoelectric Control and Energy Harvesting of Highly Flexible Multifunctional Wings

Abstract

Both active actuation and energy harvesting of highly flexible wings using piezoelectric transduction are studied in this paper. The piezoelectric effect is included in a strain-based geometrically nonlinear beam formulation. The resulting structural dynamic equations for multifunctional beams are then coupled with a finite-state unsteady aerodynamic formulation, allowing for piezoelectric energy harvesting and actuation with the nonlinear aeroelastic system. With the development, it is possible to provide an integral aeroelastic and electromechanical solution of concurrent active piezoelectric control and energy harvesting for wing vibrations, with the consideration of the geometrical nonlinear effects of slender multifunctional wings. In this paper, linear quadratic regulator and linear quadratic Gaussian controllers are developed for the active control of wing vibrations. The controllers demonstrate effective gust alleviation capabilities. Furthermore, concurrent active vibration control and energy harvesting can also be realized for the multifunctional wings with embedded piezoelectric materials. From this numerical study, the impact of the piezoelectric actuator and energy harvester placement on wing performance is benchmarked.