Rob, Stolk (Delft University of Technology), de Visser, Cornelis. C. (Delft University of Technology)

Minimum Drag Control Allocation for the Innovative Control Effector Aircraft

Scheduled for presentation during the Regular Session "Aircraft flight control analysis and design 2" (ThM1), Thursday, April 4, 2019, 12:00−12:30, Carassa-Dadda

5th CEAS Conference on Guidance, Navigation and Control, April 3-5, 2019, Milano, Italy

This information is tentative and subject to change. Compiled on April 25, 2024

Abstract

The Innovative Control Effector model is a tailless delta-wing aircraft concept equipped with 11 control surfaces with overlapping functionality and twodirectional thrust vectoring. The high level of redundancy makes it an interesting object for research on mission-specific control allocation. A (spline-based) nonlinear incremental control allocation (INCA) approach is proposed to deal with nonlinear input functions and aerodynamic interaction between multiple control surfaces. The control allocation task is formulated as a weighted least squares problem with variable secondary objectives. Two control allocation modes to minimize drag are proposed and assessed in a general flight scenario. With both modes the average drag is reduced by about 6.5% relative to a standard control allocation scheme. Sensitivity analysis points out that one mode is vulnerable to the choice of initial parameters, whereas the other is primarily sensitive to the accuracy of the onboard model. Improvement of the ICE aerodynamic model is necessary to substantiate the true potential of mission-specific control allocation for next generation aircraft.