Model Based Automatic Control Design for the T-FLEX Demonstrator Using RCE Environment

Abstract

The main goal of the paper is to develop automatic control design methods for flexible aircraft. The motivation for the research is that such automatic control generation enables the inclusion of the control design algorithms into the multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) of aircraft design. In such an extended MDO framework, called co-design, the sizing, structural dynamics, aerodynamics and the controllers of the aircraft are optimized in one single step. This way control technologies can be included early-on in the preliminary design stage of aircraft design. Since the control design is model based, first a control oriented aeroservoelastic model needs to be developed. The modeling is done via the bottom-up modelling approach. The model generation also needs to be automatic due to parameter changes resulting from the MDO process. The research focuses on flexible aircraft, therefore, the control algorithms include baseline, manoeuvre load alleviation, gust load alleviation and flutter suppression controllers. All of these algorithms needs to be developed in such way that they can automatically executed in the MDO process. The overall MDO framework is based on the Remote Component Environment (RCE) environment and the aircraft investigated is the T-Flex demonstrator of the FLIPASED project. The paper presents the main concepts of the modeling and control synthesis, analysis for the above mentioned four controllers and the most important aspects of integrating such automatic control design methods into the RCE environment.