Co-Design of the Aeroelastic Wing Parameters and the Flutter Control Law

ifasd2024 Tracking Number 196

In an aircraft design process, the initial airframe design is iteraively refined going back and forth between structural and control design. Instead of this iteration, the simultaneous optimization of the structure and the control laws would be advantageous. This paper presents a co-design for a flutter suppression controller for a simple rectangular flexible wing. The wing is parametrized by seven geometric and structural variables. The controller is based on output feedback, whose parameters are simultaneously optimized with the structure. A solution to the same co-design problem was already proposed by Filippi et. al. (2018) [1] by directly syn- thesizing the optimal control input along with the optimal parameters. In this paper, a solution is presented for the design of a control law instead of the control signals. The paper uses the model parameterization by Filippi to achieve comparable results. The behavior of the wing is evaluated by time domain simulations. The objective of the co-design method takes into consid- eration the maneuverability, comfortability, and control cost of the wing for two types of wind gusts. In our concept, we have taken the preliminary investigation of Filippi further, in which we successfully used a controller to suppress the flutter phenomenon. In our results, we achieved a cost function reduction of 81% compared to the Direct Transcription method. Thus, the sensor-based flutter suppression control is successfully applicable for co-design purposes. 1. G.Filippi and J.Morlier, “Integrated structural and control system design for robust flutter performance”, ISAE-SUPAERO Institute Suprieur de l’Aronautique et de l’Espace, p.6, 2018