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Roll control via active flow control: from concept to flight

Roll control via active flow control: from concept to flight
Roll control via active flow control: from concept to flight
This paper describes a series of experiments that enabled a flight demonstration of roll control without moving control surfaces. That goal was achieved using a wing with a partial span Glauert-type airfoil, characterized by an upper-surface boundary-layer separation from the two-thirds chord location at all incidence angles. The flow over that region was proportionally controlled using zero-mass-flux unsteady excitation emanating from piezofluidic actuators. The control was applied to one wing at a time, resulting in gradual suppression of the boundary-layer separation, increased lift, and reduced drag, leading to a coordinated turning motion of the small electric drone. The extensive multidisciplinary study (starting from the actuator adaptation, the airfoil integration, and the two dimensional wind-tunnel tests) led to the selection of a configuration for the flight demonstrator. Further development of a lightweight wing and piezofluidic actuators, along with a compact, lightweight, energy-efficient electronic drive system, was followed by full-scale wind-tunnel tests and three successful flight tests. It was flight demonstrated that active flow control can induce roll moments that are sufficient to control the vehicle flight path during cruise, as well as during landing. A linear model was used to predict the roll motion of the active-flow controlled drone, with reasonable agreement to the flight-test data. The current study resulted in several pioneering (to the best of our knowledge)achievements that should pave the way to further integration of active-flow-control methods in flight vehicles for hingeless flight attitude and flight-path control, as well as improved performance and increased reliability with lower observability.
0021-8669
864-874
Seifert, A.
141209bd-6312-4a42-a18c-9f7d1089a25f
David, S.
4db05129-f132-4381-a2ac-7fa03222b069
Fono, I.
ea0f681c-d189-4fc7-832a-ed4009d3c040
Stalnov, O.
6ca7508b-4d32-4e46-9158-ef8f03795ece
Dayan, I.
a44d92bc-fad9-414e-90a7-f53fbe5fe56f
Seifert, A.
141209bd-6312-4a42-a18c-9f7d1089a25f
David, S.
4db05129-f132-4381-a2ac-7fa03222b069
Fono, I.
ea0f681c-d189-4fc7-832a-ed4009d3c040
Stalnov, O.
6ca7508b-4d32-4e46-9158-ef8f03795ece
Dayan, I.
a44d92bc-fad9-414e-90a7-f53fbe5fe56f

Seifert, A., David, S., Fono, I., Stalnov, O. and Dayan, I. (2010) Roll control via active flow control: from concept to flight. Journal of Aircraft, 47 (3), 864-874.

Record type: Article

Abstract

This paper describes a series of experiments that enabled a flight demonstration of roll control without moving control surfaces. That goal was achieved using a wing with a partial span Glauert-type airfoil, characterized by an upper-surface boundary-layer separation from the two-thirds chord location at all incidence angles. The flow over that region was proportionally controlled using zero-mass-flux unsteady excitation emanating from piezofluidic actuators. The control was applied to one wing at a time, resulting in gradual suppression of the boundary-layer separation, increased lift, and reduced drag, leading to a coordinated turning motion of the small electric drone. The extensive multidisciplinary study (starting from the actuator adaptation, the airfoil integration, and the two dimensional wind-tunnel tests) led to the selection of a configuration for the flight demonstrator. Further development of a lightweight wing and piezofluidic actuators, along with a compact, lightweight, energy-efficient electronic drive system, was followed by full-scale wind-tunnel tests and three successful flight tests. It was flight demonstrated that active flow control can induce roll moments that are sufficient to control the vehicle flight path during cruise, as well as during landing. A linear model was used to predict the roll motion of the active-flow controlled drone, with reasonable agreement to the flight-test data. The current study resulted in several pioneering (to the best of our knowledge)achievements that should pave the way to further integration of active-flow-control methods in flight vehicles for hingeless flight attitude and flight-path control, as well as improved performance and increased reliability with lower observability.

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More information

Published date: May 2010
Organisations: Aeronautics, Astronautics & Comp. Eng

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 344206
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/344206
ISSN: 0021-8669
PURE UUID: 0ce27ef5-9a84-4405-80f9-2aa62e648afa

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 15 Oct 2012 13:18
Last modified: 26 Apr 2022 21:34

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Contributors

Author: A. Seifert
Author: S. David
Author: I. Fono
Author: O. Stalnov
Author: I. Dayan

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