DLR - Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics

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Design of secondary flight control functions

Secondary flight control law functions are designed to reduce peak loads at critical locations in the airframe structure and to improve pilot and passenger comfort. Interference with the aircraft’s handling qualities must be kept as small as possible, sometimes giving rise to conflicting design criteria. The functions are realised by control allocation and coordination, affecting distribution of aerodynamic loads over the airframe, as well as by damping of airframe structural modes.

Flexible Aircraft

Over the past years a close and successful cooperation with Airbus-D has been established within the framework of technology projects Flexible Aircraft II and III, and MODYAS. The goal of this on-going cooperation is to adapt and extend the optimisation-based control design process to loads alleviation and comfort augmentation problems, which comprises analysis of loads control potential, definition of feasible control law structures, definition of significant criteria and derivation of appropriate models for fast and efficient computations.

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AWIATOR

The aim of the EU-funded project AWIATOR is to contribute to a new future aircraft design by applying and integrating new technologies in the fields of noise regulation, demand in passenger comfort on aircraft level and alleviation of structural loads due to aircraft manoeuvres and wind turbulence. The institute is involved in the development and flight testing of new control strategies for Gust Load Alleviation, especially focusing on the integration of new direct-lift control devices and a forward-looking sensor for determination of wind turbulences ahead of the aircraft.

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