Multicontrol Surface Optimization for Blended Wing–Body Under Handling Quality Constraints

Abstract

Control architecture sizing is a main challenge of blended-wing–body design. This aircraft configuration typically features redundant elevons located at the trailing edge of the wing, acting simultaneously on pitch and roll axes. Consequently, a proper sizing requires one to consider coupled longitudinal and lateral criteria. Moreover, significant hinge moments due to large control surface areas, combined with high deflection rates in order to safely control the longitudinal instability, may result in excessive power consumption and actuator mass penalty. Therefore, it is highly desirable at the preliminary design level to minimize control surface areas, while ensuring adequate closed-loop handling qualities, with limited deflections and deflection rates. The problem of integrated design of control surface sizes and flight control laws for an unstable blended-wing–body aircraft is addressed here. The latest tools for nonsmooth optimization of structured controllers are used to optimize in a single step the gains for both longitudinal and lateral control laws, as well as a control allocation module, while minimizing the control surface span. The following constraints are ensured: maximal deflection angles and rates for 1) pilot longitudinal pull up, 2) pilot bank angle order, and 3) longitudinal turbulence. Using this coupled approach, significant gains in terms of the outer elevon’s span as compared to the initial layout are demonstrated, whereas closed-loop handling quality constraints are guaranteed.