Gust Alleviation of Highly Flexible Aircraft with Model Predictive Control

In this paper, the coupled aeroelastic and flight dynamic behavior of highly flexible aircraft is modeled by coupling the strain-based geometrically nonlinear beam formulation and rigid-body flight dynamic equations. Conventional trailing-edge flaps along the main wings and tails are deployed to provide the required loads for the flight altitude control and/or vibration control of the slender vehicle. This study mainly addresses the gust suppression and alleviation of highly flexible aircraft using the model predictive controller (MPC). The nonlinear aeroelastic and flight dynamic equations are linearized about a set of parameterized wing deformations, based on which the linear-parameter varying (LPV) models are established. By using the linearized models, the model predictive controller is designed with the time-domain gust perturbations considered in the control development. Numerical studies will demonstrate the effectiveness of the current approach for the vibration control of highly flexible aircraft.