Aircraft Damage Identification and Classification for Database-Driven Online Flight-Envelope Prediction

Zhang, Y.; Visser, Coen C. de; Chu, Q.P.

doi:10.2514/1.g002866

Cited by 27 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 22 publications

(58 reference statements)

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“…Sudden occurrence of abnormal cases, like structural damage and system failures, may cause an abrupt change to the flight dynamics as well as control authority, leading to a potential loss of stability and control [9,10]. In such cases, fast responses and high-frequency control inputs for new control strategies are required, which are difficult or even physically impossible for human pilots to achieve.…”

Section: Online Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The implementation of a flight envelope prediction system, which includes system identification, fault/damage diagnosis and database building has been thoroughly discussed in [10,11]. However, none of these have practical meaning if they are not connected and running in-the-loop with an FTC.…”

Section: Online Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One problem with current-day flight envelope protection systems is that they work with static flight envelopes, under the assumption that the intrinsic aircraft flight dynamics do not change under any circumstances. When abnormal cases like structural damage and icing occur, however, the performance of the aircraft may suddenly or slowly degrade, which is ultimately reflected in a change of the flight envelope [9,10]. If the new, in most cases reduced flight envelopes are not provided to the control system or pilots in time, the aircraft might unintentionally leave the safe region, a situation that may evolve into an LOC event.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An online flight envelope prediction system developed in our previous research [10,11] addressed this problem by building a database of various key abnormal cases with their associated changed flight envelopes. The proposed system considerably reduces the computational burden and circumvents many complications related to online flight envelope prediction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Database-driven Safe Flight Envelope Protection for Impaired Aircraft

Zhang

Huang

Chu

et al. 2020

AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum

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In this paper, an online flight envelope protection system is developed and implemented on impaired aircraft with structural damage. The whole protection system is designed to be a closed-loop of several subsystems , including system identification, damage classification, flight-envelope prediction and fault-tolerant control. Based on the information given by damage classification, the flight envelopes are explicitly retrieved and processed online from the database and fed into the fault-tolerant controller, which makes the protection system adaptive to a wide range of abnormal conditions. Simulation results show that with envelope protection, loss-ofcontrol accidents are more likely to be prevented, since both the controller and pilots are aware of the shrunken flight envelopes after damage and excessive commands are restricted. In this way, the fault-tolerance of the impaired aircraft can be effectively enhanced.

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Section: Online Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Online Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Database-driven Safe Flight Envelope Protection for Impaired Aircraft

Zhang

Huang

Chu

et al. 2020

AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum

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“…In fault-tolerant control, multiple pre-computed envelopes under different failure cases can be interpolated as in Ref. [23,24].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probabilistic Flight Envelope Estimation with Application to Unstable Over-Actuated Aircraft

Yin

Chu

Zhang

et al. 2019

AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum

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This paper proposes a novel and practical framework for safe flight envelope estimation and protection, in order to prevent loss-of-control-related accidents. Conventional analytical envelope estimation methods fail to function efficiently for systems with high dimensionality and complex dynamics, which is often the case for high-fidelity aircraft models. In this way, this paper develops a probabilistic envelope estimation method based on Monte Carlo simulation. This method generates a probabilistic estimation of the flight envelope by simulating flight trajectories with extreme control effectiveness. It is shown that this method can significantly reduce the computational load compared with previous optimization-based methods and guarantee feasible and conservative envelope estimation of no less than seven dimensions. This method was applied to the Innovative Control Effectors aircraft, an over-actuated tailless fighter aircraft with complex aerodynamic coupling between control effectors. The estimated probabilistic flight envelope is used for online envelope protection by a database approach. Both conventional state-constraint-based and novel predictive probabilistic flight envelope protection systems were implemented on a multi-loop nonlinear dynamic inversion controller. Real-time simulation results demonstrate that the proposed framework can protect the aircraft within the estimated envelope and save the aircraft from maneuvers that otherwise would result in loss of control. I, R = invariant and reachable sets J = inertia matrix, slug·ft 2 J = augmented inertia matrix

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