Understanding pilot biodynamical feedthrough coupling in helicopter adverse roll axis instability via lateral cyclic feedback control

The authors thank Joost Venrooij, Project Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, for providing the experimental results obtained on SIMONA flight simulator (TU Delft).The paper reassesses the mechanism of biodynamical feedthrough coupling to helicopter body motion in lateral-roll helicopter tasks. An analytical bio-aeroelastic pilot–vehicle model is first developed and tested for various pilot's neuromuscular adaptions in the lateral/roll axis helicopter tasks. The results demonstrate that pilot can destabilize the low-frequency regressing lead-lag rotor mode; however he/she is destabilizing also the high-frequency advancing lag rotor mode. The mechanism of pilot destabilization involves three vicious energy circles, i.e. lateral-roll, flap-roll and flap-lag motions, in a very similar manner as in the air resonance phenomenon. For both modes, the destabilization is very sensitive to an increase of the steady state rotor coning angle that increases the energy transfers from flap to lag motion through Coriolis forces. The analytical linear time-invariant model developed in this paper can be also used to investigate designs proneness to lateral/roll aeroelastic rotorcraft–pilot couplings.This work was supported by the “Complex Mechanical Systems Dynamics” Chair – Airbus Group Foundation and the engineering school Arts et Metiers Paristech