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Pitch controller for helicopter rotors uses hub-mounted actuators located symmetrically between rotor blades. New controller designed for X-wing rotors requiring collective pitch control; pitch of all blades must be changed by same amount. Collective control allows rotor trimmed during variety of flight regimes, particularly during hovering and fixed-wing flight.
The stochastic robustness of solutions to a benchmark control design problem has been analyzed. The analysis quantifies the controllers' stability and performance robustness with structured uncertainties in up to six system parameters. The analysis provides insights about system response that are not readily derived from other robustness criteria, providing a common ground for judging controllers produced by alternative methods.
A coupled finite element (FE) and boundary element (BE) approach is presented to model full coupled structural/acoustic/piezoelectric systems. The dual reciprocity boundary element method is used so that the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the coupled system can be obtained, and to extend this approach to time dependent problems. The boundary element method is applied to interior acoustic domains, and the results are very accurate when compared with limited exact solutions. Structural-acoustic problems are then analyzed with the coupled finite element/boundary element method, where the finite element method models the structural domain and the boundary element method models the acoustic domain. Results for a system consisting of an isotropic panel and a cubic cavity are in good agreement with exact solutions and experiment data. The response of a composite panel backed cavity is then obtained. The results show that the mass and stiffness of piezoelectric layers have to be considered. The coupled finite element and boundary element equations are transformed into modal coordinates, which is more convenient for transient excitation. Several transient problems are solved based on this formulation. Two control designs, a linear quadratic regulator (LQR) and a feedforward controller, are applied to reduce the acoustic pressure inside the cavity based on the equations in modal coordinates. The results indicate that both controllers can reduce the interior acoustic pressure and the plate deflection.
Controlling vibration of structures is essential for both space structures as well as terrestrial structures. Due to the ambient acceleration levels anticipated for the International Space Station, active vibration isolation is required to provide a quiescent acceleration environment for many science experiments. An overview is given of systems developed and flight tested in orbit for microgravity vibration isolation. Technology developed for vibration control of flexible space structures may also be applied to control of terrestrial structures such as buildings and bridges subject to wind loading or earthquake excitation. Recent developments in modern robust control for flexible space structures are shown to provide good structural vibration control while maintaining robustness to model uncertainties. Results of a mixed H-2/H-infinity control design are provided for a benchmark problem in structural control for earthquake resistant buildings.
The Benchmark Active Controls Technology (BACT) project is part of NASA Langley Research Center s Benchmark Models Program for studying transonic aeroelastic phenomena. In January of 1996 the BACT wind-tunnel model was used to successfully demonstrate the application of robust multivariable control design methods (H and -synthesis) to flutter suppression. This paper addresses the design and experimental evaluation of robust multivariable flutter suppression control laws with particular attention paid to the degree to which stability and performance robustness was achieved.
The continued investigation of the design of Ride Quality Augmentation Systems (RQAS) for commuter aircraft is described. The purpose of these RQAS is the reduction of the vertical and lateral acceleration response of the aircraft due to atmospheric turbulence by the application of active control. The current investigations include the refinement of the sample data feedback control laws based on the control-rate-weighting and output-weighting optimal control design techniqes. These control designs were evaluated using aircraft time simulations driven by Dryden spectra turbulence. Fixed gain controllers were tested throughout the aircrft operating envelope. The preliminary design of the hardware modifications necessary to implement and test the RQAS on a commuter aircraft is included. These include a separate surface elevator and the flap modifications to provide both direct lift and roll control. A preliminary failure mode investigation was made for the proposed configuration. The results indicate that vertical acceleration reductions of 45% and lateral reductions of more than 50% are possible. A fixed gain controller appears to be feasible with only minor response degradation.
We present a control co-design software framework that can be used to optimize floating wind turbines and their controllers. Because this framework has many options for design variables, constraints, and merit figures, along with modeling fidelity levels, we seek to demonstrate best practices for using the tool while designing a floating platform for the new 22 MW offshore reference wind turbine developed within the International Energy Agency Wind Technology Commercialization Programme 55 on Reference Wind Turbines and Farms. During these studies, we evaluate the use of different simulation fidelity levels, the effect of using different load cases for controller tuning, and the difference between sequential and simultaneous control co-design solutions. Based on these efforts, we suggest using an algorithm that performs an initial search of the design space before optimization. We find that solving smaller optimization problems, in a sequential manner, leads to more reliable outcomes in fewer iterations than larger, simultaneous control co-design solutions. However a simultaneous CCD solution produces a platform with a 2% lower mass than the sequential CCD outcome.
Modeling and control design for flexible manipulators, both from an experimental and analytical viewpoint, are described. From the application perspective, an ongoing effort within the laboratory environment at the Ohio State University, where experimentation on a single link flexible arm is underway is described. Several unique features of this study are described here. First, the manipulator arm is slewed by a direct drive dc motor and has a rigid counterbalance appendage. Current experimentation is from two viewpoints: (1) rigid body slewing and vibration control via actuation with the hub motor, and (2) vibration suppression through the use of structure-mounted proof-mass actuation at the tip. Such an application to manipulator control is of interest particularly in design of space-based telerobotic control systems, but has received little attention to date. From an analytical viewpoint, parameter estimation techniques within the closed-loop for self-tuning adaptive control approaches are discussed. Also introduced is a control approach based on output feedback and frequency weighting to counteract effects of spillover in reduced-order model design. A model of the flexible manipulator based on experimental measurements is evaluated for such estimation and control approaches.
The SLS Program has implemented a Model-based Design (MBD) and Model-based Requirements approach for managing component design information and system requirements. This approach differs from previous large-scale design efforts at Marshall Space Flight Center where design documentation alone conveyed information required for vehicle design and analysis and where extensive requirements sets were used to scope and constrain the design. The SLS Navigation Team is responsible for the Program-controlled Design Math Models (DMMs) which describe and represent the performance of the Inertial Navigation System (INS) and the Rate Gyro Assemblies (RGAs) used by Guidance, Navigation, and Controls (GN&C). The SLS Navigation Team is also responsible for navigation algorithms. The navigation algorithms are delivered for implementation on the flight hardware as a DMM. For the SLS Block 1B design, the additional GPS Receiver hardware model is managed as a DMM at the vehicle design level. This paper describes the models, and discusses the processes and methods used to engineer, design, and coordinate engineering trades and performance assessments using SLS practices as applied to the GN&C system, with a particular focus on the navigation components.
The acoustical treatment mass penalties required to achieve an interior noise level of 80 dBA for high speed, fuel efficient propfan-powered aircraft are determined. The prediction method used is based on theory developed for the outer shell dynamics, and a modified approach for add-on noise control element performance. The present synthesis of these methods is supported by experimental data. Three different sized aircraft are studied, including a widebody, a narrowbody and a business sized aircraft. Noise control penalties are calculated for each aircraft for two kinds of noise control designs: add-on designs, where the outer wall structure cannot be changed, and advanced designs where the outer wall stiffness level and the materials usage can be altered. For the add-on designs, the mass penalties range from 1.7 to 2.4 percent of the takeoff gross weight (TOGW) of the various aircraft, similar to preliminary estimates. Results for advanced designs show significant reductions of the mass penalties. For the advanced aluminum designs the penalties are 1.5% of TOGW, and for an all composite aircraft the penalties range from 0.74 to 1.4% of TOGW.
The topics considered are related to linear control system design, adaptive control, failure detection, control under failure, system reliability, and large-scale systems and decentralized control. It is pointed out that the design of a linear feedback control system which regulates a process about a desirable set point or steady-state condition in the presence of disturbances is a very important problem. The linearized dynamics of the process are used for design purposes. The typical linear-quadratic design involving the solution of the optimal control problem of a linear time-invariant system with respect to a quadratic performance criterion is considered along with gain reduction theorems and the multivariable phase margin theorem. The stumbling block in many adaptive design methodologies is associated with the amount of real time computation which is necessary. Attention is also given to the desperate need to develop good theories for large-scale systems, the beginning of a microprocessor revolution, the translation of the Wiener-Hopf theory into the time domain, and advances made in dynamic team theory, dynamic stochastic games, and finite memory stochastic control.
This paper reports on research for extending the Cooperative Control Synthesis methodology to include a more accurate modeling of the pilot's controller dynamics. Cooperative Control Synthesis (CCS) is a methodology that addresses the problem of how to design control laws for piloted, high-order, multivariate systems and/or non-conventional dynamic configurations in the absence of flying qualities specifications. This is accomplished by emphasizing the parallel structure inherent in any pilot-controlled, augmented vehicle. The original CCS methodology is extended to include the Modified Optimal Control Model (MOCM), which is based upon the optimal control model of the human operator developed by Kleinman, Baron, and Levison in 1970. This model provides a modeling of the pilot's compensation dynamics that is more accurate than the simplified pilot dynamic representation currently in the CCS methodology. Inclusion of the MOCM into the CCS also enables the modeling of pilot-observation perception thresholds and pilot-observation attention allocation affects. This Extended Cooperative Control Synthesis (ECCS) allows for the direct calculation of pilot and system open- and closed-loop transfer functions in pole/zero form and is readily implemented in current software capable of analysis and design for dynamic systems. Example results based upon synthesizing an augmentation control law for an acceleration command system in a compensatory tracking task using the ECCS are compared with a similar synthesis performed by using the original CCS methodology. The ECCS is shown to provide augmentation control laws that yield more favorable, predicted closed-loop flying qualities and tracking performance than those synthesized using the original CCS methodology.
Summaries and abstracts on theory, design, optimization, and stability problems of nonlinear control systems
Parameter optimization techniques for the design of linear automatic control systems that are applicable to both continuous and digital systems are described. The model performance index is used as the optimization criterion because of the physical insight that can be attached to it. The design emphasis is to start with the simplest system configuration that experience indicates would be practical. Design parameters are specified, and a digital computer program is used to select that set of parameter values which minimizes the performance index. The resulting design is examined, and complexity, through the use of more complex information processing or more feedback paths, is added only if performance fails to meet operational specifications. System performance specifications are assumed to be such that the desired step function time response of the system can be inferred.
An approach is presented to designing a control system with output feedback for a lightweight flexible arm. A two-time-scale dynamic model is obtained which allows the adoption of a composite control strategy. First a slow control can be designed for the slow (rigid) subsystem, and then a fast stabilizing control for the fast (flexible) subsystem. The problem of the lack of full state measurements connected with the fast control design is solved. An output-feedback, low-order dynamic compensator whose optimal gains are computed by a convergent numerical algorithm is designed. A more robust design can be achieved if a loop transfer recovery procedure is introduced. The design procedure is tested by means of nonlinear simulation, and the results are discussed.
This paper proposes a methodology for the analysis and tuning of controllers using control verification metrics. These metrics, which are introduced in a companion paper, measure the size of the largest uncertainty set of a given class for which the closed-loop specifications are satisfied. This framework integrates deterministic and probabilistic uncertainty models into a setting that enables the deformation of sets in the parameter space, the control design space, and in the union of these two spaces. In regard to control analysis, we propose strategies that enable bounding regions of the design space where the specifications are satisfied by all the closed-loop systems associated with a prescribed uncertainty set. When this is unfeasible, we bound regions where the probability of satisfying the requirements exceeds a prescribed value. In regard to control tuning, we propose strategies for the improvement of the robust characteristics of a baseline controller. Some of these strategies use multi-point approximations to the control verification metrics in order to alleviate the numerical burden of solving a min-max problem. Since this methodology targets non-linear systems having an arbitrary, possibly implicit, functional dependency on the uncertain parameters and for which high-fidelity simulations are available, they are applicable to realistic engineering problems..
Researchers are exploring adding wave energy converters to existing oceanographic buoys to provide a predictable source of renewable power. A ”pitch resonator” power take-off system has been developed that generates power using a geared flywheel system designed to match resonance with the pitching motion of the buoy. However, the novelty of the concept leaves researchers uncertain about various design aspects of the system. This work presents a novel design study of a pitch resonator to inform design decisions for an upcoming deployment of the system. The assessment uses control co-design via WecOptTool to optimize control trajectories for maximal electrical power production while varying five design parameters of the pitch resonator. Given the large search space of the problem, the control trajectories are optimized within a Monte Carlo analysis to identify optimal designs, followed by parameter sweeps around the optimum to identify trends between the design parameters. The gear ratio between the pitch resonator spring and flywheel are found to be the most sensitive design variables to power performance. Finally, the assessment also finds similar power generation for various sizes of resonator components, suggesting that correctly designing for optimal control trajectories at resonance is more critical to the design than component sizing.
A new free-tip rotor moment controller designed to increase torque output (a restoring moment) was proposed. The controller would be used as a retention device for the freely pitching tip of a helicopter rotor. The new design featured a tapered tension-torsion strap instead of the previously used parellel strap. A tapered strap has a larger separation between the tension wires at the retention end than at the oscillating end; separation is equal at both ends for a parallel strap. A simple dynamic analysis was developed and an experiment performed to evaluate this tapered strap concept. The test results indicated that the torsional spring stiffness of the strap, represented by a torsional pendulum, increased with the amount of taper. The predicted dynamic characteristics of the pendulum also confirmed this observation and correlated reasonably well with the experimental results. It could be concluded from the experimental and analytical results that the tapered strap accomplished increased torque output when compared to the parellel strap.