Direct Lift Control of a Prandtlplane Aircraft for Improved Landing Performances

The subject of the present thesis is the numerical evaluation of landing performances by using Direct Lift Control of an innovative aircraft configuration in the framework of the PARSIFAL project. The main goal is to investigate the usage of Direct Lift Control (DLC) for a generic PrandtlPlane aircraft in order to improve both landing performances and height gain maneuvers. This master’s thesis was conducted in close collaboration with the Aerospace Department of TUDelft. The work is implemented in a in-house, fully non-linear dynamic model built in the MATLAB/Simulink, named PHALANX. The research outcomes are both the implementation of an innovative DLC and the design of an automatic landing system to evaluate the aircraft performances employing DLC. Several Direct Lift Control strategies are proposed and, addition- ally, the feasible solutions are evaluated. Each strategy is based on a different selection of the control surfaces employed, such as elevators, ailerons or both. The auto-landing system is able to perform autonomously the glide- slope and the flare maneuver. By using a specific logic, the system allows to switch automatically from the glide-slope to the flare. Once defined the trim condition, the process is completely autom- atized: the user can select the maneuver and, consequently, the best DLC strategy is set. Finally, a Monte Carlo approach and statistical analyses are used to analyze both the robustness of the automatic landing system and the improvements achieved by using Direct Lift Control