Adaptive Feedforward Control for Gust-Induced Aeroelastic Vibrations

This paper demonstrates the implementation of an adaptive feedforward controller to reduce structural vibrations on a wing typical section. The aeroelastic model includes a structural nonlinearity, which is modelled in a polynomial form. Aeroelastic vibrations are induced by several gusts and atmospheric turbulence, including the discrete “one-minus-cosine” and a notably good approximation in the time-domain to the von Kármán spectrum. The control strategy based on the adaptive feedforward controller has several advantages compared to the standard feedback controller. The controller gains, which are updated in real-time during the gust encounter, are found solving a minimization problem using the finite impulse responses as basis functions. To make progress with the application in aeroelasticity, a single-input single-output controller is designed measuring the wing torsional deformation. For both deterministic and random atmospheric shapes, the controller was found successful in alleviating the aeroelastic vibrations. The impact of the control action on the unmeasured structural modes was found minimal