Aerodynamic Circulation Control for Flapless Flight Control of an Unmanned Air Vehicle

Download or read book Aerodynamic Circulation Control for Flapless Flight Control of an Unmanned Air Vehicle written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The supporting Flight Dynamics research contribution to the design of Demon, a flapless UAV demonstrator which is the subject of the national research programme FLAVIIR, is described in this thesis. In particular, an integrated flight control and fluidic control system which employs aerodynamic circulation control (CC) to enhance, or replace a conventional aileron is presented. The elimination, or reduction in size, of hinged flight control surfaces on an aircraft offers the possibility of reducing aircraft signature and reducing maintenance requirements; fluidic maneuver effectors provide the opportunity to produce the forces and moments required for flight vehicle maneuvering without using conventional control surfaces. A novel alternative to a conventional single slot trailing edge CC actuator that enables proportional bi-directional control was developed. The CC actuator was manufactured and tested, and experimental evaluation confirmed that bi-directional incremental lift generation comparable to that produced by a mechanical flap of similar trailing edge span is entirely feasible. Wind tunnel tests of a 50% full-span scale Demon model were carried out to establish a representative aerodynamic model of the vehicle. A high fidelity 6DoF simulation of the air vehicle was developed, based on the wind tunnel data and was used to assess vehicle trim, stability and control properties. A mathematical model of the flow control actuator, for interfacing the CC system with the flight control system, was developed and incorporated in the dynamic model of the vehicle. The model determined flapless performance and controllability of the aircraft and, in particular, specific saturation limits and their impact on different phases of flight. Also, the requirements for a secondary air supply system for the CC system and practical values of the volumetric air flow requirement have been assessed. A semi-autonomous primary Flight Control System to enable command and control by a r.