Computer aided development of biomechanical pilot models

The involuntary interaction of a pilot with an aircraft can be described as pilot-assisted oscillations. Such phenomena are usually only addressed late in the design process when they manifest themselves during ground/flight testing. Methods to be able to predict such phenomena as early as possible are therefore useful. This work describes a technique to predict the adverse aeroservoelastic rotorcraft-pilot couplings, specifically between a rotorcraft's roll motion and the resultant involuntary pilot lateral cyclic motion. By coupling linear vehicle aeroservoelastic models and experimentally identified pilot biodynamic models, pilot-assisted oscillations and no-pilot-assisted oscillation conditions have been numerically predicted for a soft-in-plane hingeless helicopter with a lightly damped regressive lead-lag mode that strongly interacts with the roll mode at a frequency within the biodynamic band of the pilots. These predictions have then been verified using real-time flight-simulation experiments. The absence of any similar adverse couplings experienced while using only rigid-body models in the flight simulator verified that the observed phenomena were indeed aeroelastic in nature. The excellent agreement between the numerical predictions and the observed experimental results indicates that the techniques developed in this paper can be used to highlight the proneness of new or existing designs to pilot-assisted oscillations.

Section: B Biodynamic Feedthrough Identification Of Sway/lateral Cycmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prediction and Simulator Verification of Roll/Lateral Adverse Aeroservoelastic Rotorcraft–Pilot Couplings

Muscarello¹,

Quaranta²,

Masarati³

et al. 2016

“…A general PVS scheme is sketched in Several pilot BDFTs have been proposed in the literature using data from cockpit mock-up excitation, e.g. Allen et al [27], Jex and Magdaleno [28] and Höhne [29], flight simulator tests, e.g. Mayo [30] and Masarati et al [31], and in-flight measurements, e.g.…”

Section: B Pilot's Biodynamic Feedthroughmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aeroelastic Rotorcraft–Pilot Couplings in Tiltrotor Aircraft

Muscarello

Colombo

Quaranta

et al. 2019

This work investigates rotorcraft-pilot coupling phenomena in tiltrotor aircraft. A detailed tiltrotor model, representative of the Bell XV-15, has been built. Biomechanical models of the pilot, acting on the power lever and on the center stick, are included in feedback loop to define the Pilot-Vehicle System. Pilot-Assisted Oscillation phenomena are investigated on the overall conversion corridor using Nyquist's criterion. Pilot-in-the-loop analyses demonstrate that a critical parameter is detected in the vertical tail geometry. For an asymmetric deflection of the

“…Subsequent work addressed the impact of vibration on pilot control, focusing on the feedthrough of vibration from the pilot to the control inceptors (for example Allen et al [6], and Jex and Magdaleno [7]; see also the review by McLeod and Griffin [8], the work by Merhav and Idan [9] and the work of Höhne [10]). The effects of lateral stick characteristics on pilot dynamics were further investigated from flight data by Mitchell et al [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Voluntary Pilot Action Through Biodynamics for Helicopter Flight Dynamics Simulation

Masarati¹,

Quaranta²,

Bernardini³

et al. 2015

This work presents the integration of detailed models of a pilot controlling a helicopter along the heave axis through the collective control inceptor. The action on the control inceptor is produced through a biomechanical model of the pilot's limbs, by commanding the activation of the related muscle bundles. Such activation, in turn, is determined by defining the muscle elongations required to move the control inceptor in partial derivative of (♠) with respect to (♣)