| EPSRC Reference: |
EP/R032548/1 |
| Title: |
PDE Boundary Control for Active Flutter Prevention Using Finite Dimensional Input-Output Maps |
| Principal Investigator: |
Paranjape, Dr A A |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Researcher Co-Investigators: |
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| Project Partners: |
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| Department: |
Aeronautics |
| Organisation: |
Imperial College London |
| Scheme: |
New Investigator Award |
| Starts: |
01 June 2018 |
Ends: |
31 January 2019 |
Value (£): |
196,683
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
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| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
| Aerospace, Defence and Marine |
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| Panel History: |
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
Flutter is a well-studied phenomenon in aircraft wings, and typically affects wings at high flight speeds. Traditionally, aircraft designers sought to avoid flutter altogether; if it was encountered at all during advanced design stages or flight testing, it was dealt with using design fixes and/or inefficient operational modifications. The importance of active flutter mitigation has increased as the wings have become lighter and consequently more flexible over the years.
A recent example of active flutter mitigation, which is also commercially deployed, is the outboard aileron modal suppression (OAMS) system incorporated on the Boeing 747-8I.
While the details of OAMS are unknown, the phrase "modal suppression" suggests that its design falls within the ambit of traditional wing control methods which use a finite dimensional approximation of the dynamics to design a stabilizing controller. Although this approach allows a designer to tap into the vast family of control techniques for systems described by ordinary differential equations (ODEs), it has three major drawbacks: the ODE approximations tend to have large orders, the states of the ODE are seldom physically meaningful, and the control design process is susceptible to spillover instabilities which can result from an improper modal approximation.
Control techniques for systems described by partial differential equation (PDEs), and which avoid finite dimensional approximations, have been evolving steadily in the recent past and promise to do away with both aforementioned drawbacks. The prior work done by the PI led to two new adaptive control techniques that fall within this evolving family of techniques.
One of the techniques developed by the PI uses finite dimensional input-output (FDIO) maps that arise naturally for specific input-output pairs for a given PDE. Using FDIO maps, it is possible to convert the control design problem exactly to one for ODEs. Although akin to the risky approach of designing a static output feedback controller in finite dimensional systems, the PI discovered that the structure of the PDE provides a means for expanding the stable envelope of the system even under static output feedback. The PI's work also provided a partial explanation for the underlying stabilization mechanism.
The aim of the present project is to develop and demonstrate a low-order adaptive control design technique for flexible wings which exploits the underlying PDE structure of the dynamics effectively, together with a clever reformulation of the control problem. The controller would be based on the PI's prior work [1, 6]. We will provide a major extension of the technique to more realistic, 2-dof wing models and adaptive laws to help the controller deal with modeling and parametric uncertainties. This is key to ensuring practical applicability of the control technique, and requires non-trivial theoretical development as well. We will validate the control technique using wind tunnel testing. The outcome of this project would be a low-order adaptive controller accompanied by analytical performance and stability guarantees. Additionally, the control design would minimize the set of sensors required for the feedback laws, by avoiding ODE approximations as far as possible during the design process.
Beneficiaries of this research include the academic community and the aircraft industry, notably those that are involved in developing and deploying aeroelastic solutions. The broader impact of the proposed research has been described elsewhere in the proposal.
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Key Findings |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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| Project URL: |
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| Further Information: |
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| Organisation Website: |
http://www.imperial.ac.uk |