Active Aeroelastic Control of the Supersonic Semispan Transport (S4T) Model (2010)

Introduction

Active aeroelastic control has the potential to address flutter, dynamic loads, and ride quality for supersonic transport configurations without adding weight, thereby enabling efficient high speed flight. In this development, control laws have been developed for a dynamically scaled wind tunnel model of a supersonic transport configuration known as the supersonic semispan transport (S4T). Control laws have been designed to simultaneously provide flutter suppression, gust load alleviation, and ride quality assurance to this configuration. These laws were developed using the Linear Quadratic Gaussian method with Loop Transfer Recovery. These control laws have been assessed using both analytical and experimental studies at the Transonic Dynamics Tunnel. Improvements in the aeroelastic response of the S4T are found in both analytical and experimental  results.