Virtual flight test of pitch and roll attitude control based on circulation control of tailless flying wing aircraft without rudders

Abstract

Circulation Control (CC) realizes rudderless flight control by driving compressed air jet to generate a virtual rudder surface, which significantly improves low detectability. The layout plan of combined control rudder surface is proposed based on the tailless flying wing aircraft. The closed-loop jet actuator system and stepless rudder surface switching control strategy are used to quantitatively study the control characteristics of circulation actuator for pitch and roll attitude through 3-DOF virtual flight test in a wind tunnel with a powered model at wind speed of 40 m/s. The results show that the combined use of circulation actuators can achieve bidirectional continuous and stable control of the aircraft’s pitch and roll attitude, with the maximum pitch rate of 12.3 (°)/s and the maximum roll rate of 21.5 (°)/s; the response time of attitude angular rate varying with the jet pressure ratio is less than 0.02 s, which can satisfy the control response requirements of aircraft motion stability for the control system; the jet rudder surface has a strong moment control ability, and the pitch moment of the jet elevator with a pressure ratio of 1.28 is the same as that of the mechanical elevator with 28° rudder deflection, which can expand the flight control boundary.