Ground Testing of the FLEXOP Demonstrator Aircraft

Sodja, Jurij; Breuker, Roeland De; Meddaikar, Yasser M.; Dillinger, Johannes; Soal, Keith; Govers, Yves; Krueger, Wolf; Georgopoulos, Panagiotis; Koimtzoglou, Christos; Roessler, Christian; Koeberle, Sebastian J.; Bartasevicius, Julius; Teubl, Daniel; Gyulai, Laszlo; Tóth, Szabolcs; Nagy, Mihaly; Balogh, Dániel; Jasdi, Miklos; Bauer, Péter; Vanek, Bálint

doi:10.2514/6.2020-1968

Cited by 13 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These vehicles were mainly used to evaluate active control systems and flutter suppression techniques, as well as for stability and structural investigations. A more recent take on active flutter control and aeroelastic tailoring is the European Flutter-free Flight Envelope Extension for Economical Performance Improvement (FLEXOP) research project [13][14][15][16][17][18] and its continuation, FLiPASED.…”

Section: Aeroelastic Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Current Research in Subscale Flight Testing and Analysis of Its Main Practical Challenges

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Testing of untethered subscale models, often referred to as subscale flight testing, has traditionally had a relatively minor, yet relevant use in aeronautical research and development. As recent advances in electronics, rapid prototyping and unmanned-vehicle technologies expand its capabilities and lower its cost, this experimental method is seeing growing interest across academia and the industry. However, subscale models cannot meet all similarity conditions required for simulating full-scale flight. This leads to a variety of approaches to scaling and to other alternative applications. Through a literature review and analysis of different scaling strategies, this study presents an overall picture of how subscale flight testing has been used in recent years and synthesises its main issues and practical limitations. Results show that, while the estimation of full-scale characteristics is still an interesting application within certain flight conditions, subscale models are progressively taking a broader role as low-cost technology-testing platforms with relaxed similarity constraints. Different approaches to tackle the identified practical challenges, implemented both by the authors and by other organisations, are discussed and evaluated through flight experiments.

show abstract

Section: Aeroelastic Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Current Research in Subscale Flight Testing and Analysis of Its Main Practical Challenges

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A more recent take on active flutter control and aeroelastic tailoring is the European Flutter-free Flight Envelope Extension for Economical Performance Improvement (FLEXOP) research project [85,86,87,88,89,90] and its continuation, FLiPASED.…”

Section: Aeroelastic Scalingmentioning

confidence: 99%

On subscale flight testing : Cost-effective techniques for research and development

Rueda

2021

Linköping Studies in Science and Technology. Dissertations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A ground-test campaign [18] involving structural tests and ground vibration tests (GVT) has been performed on the FLEXOP wings. At the time of writing of this paper, a preliminary update of the FE model of the baseline wing (-0) has been performed based only on experimental data from static tests.…”

Section: B Ground-testing Based Model Updatementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A knock-down factor of ∼17% in this case produces satisfactory results as shown in Figure 4. A comparison of the frequencies between this stiffness-updated FE model and the GVT [18] is shown in Table 1. Also shown is the modal assurance criterion (MAC) which is an indicator of similarity between mode shapes from two sets in Figure 5.…”

Section: B Ground-testing Based Model Updatementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Real-flight test results with the baseline controller has shown that only the 5.0 model version of the aircraft fits the real flight results so this should be used in any further SIL / HIL tests. Unfortunately, test of the flutter controllers in SIL on 5.0 aircraft (A/C) model has shown that the performance of the SZTAKI controller was unsatisfactory with 14ms delay and above, so it should be further developed before HIL and flight testing (more details about SIL tests can be found in see [47]). This has led to the definition of a hybrid SIL-HIL test environment (see Fig.…”

Section: Fig 28 Delay Measurement In Hil Continuous Line Is the Sigmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Active Flutter Mitigation Testing on the FLEXOP Demonstrator Aircraft

Takarics

Patartics

Luspay

et al. 2020

AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The paper details the research and corresponding implementation and testing steps of the FLEXOP demonstrator aircraft. Within the EU funded project an unmanned demonstrator aircraft is built to validate the mathematical modelling, flight control design and implementation side of active flutter mitigation. In order to validate the different methods and tools developed in this project, a flight test campaign is planned, in which the design and manufacturing of stiff wings (-0), are compared with very flexible wings (-1) with active flutter control, to see the overall benefit vs. risk of such technology. The mathematical models of the aircraft are first developed using FEM and CFD tools, what are later reduced by model order reduction techniques. The high-fidelity models are updated using Ground Vibration Test results. Manufacturing tolerances and variations in aircraft parameters are captured by systematic modelling of parametric and dynamic uncertainties. Both the simulation environment and the control design framework use different modelling fidelity, what are described within the paper. Reduced models are developed using two distinctive methods, respecting the control design needs: top-down balanced LPV reduction and bottom-up structure preserving methods. Based on the reduced order models various control design techniques have been elaborated by the consortium partners. In particular DLR developed and implemented a modal control method using H2 optimal blends for inputs and outputs. University of Bristol developed structured H-infinity optimal control methods, while SZTAKI proposed a worst-case gain optimal method structured controller synthesis method handling parametric and complex uncertainties. After the brief introduction of hardware-in-the-loop test setup and the description of mission scenarios the implementation issues of the baseline and flutter controllers are discussed. DLR and SZTAKI flutter controllers are evaluated in a hybrid software-/ hardware-in-the-loop test setup as at this stage of development the latter can not tolerate the estimated delay of the hardware system but their comparison is advantageous before future developments. Recommendations on active flutter mitigation methods are given based on the experience of synthesis and implementation of these controllers. Flight test results will follow these experiments, once the flight testing of the flutter wing commences.

show abstract

Ground Testing of the FLEXOP Demonstrator Aircraft

Cited by 13 publications

References 18 publications

A Review of Current Research in Subscale Flight Testing and Analysis of Its Main Practical Challenges

A Review of Current Research in Subscale Flight Testing and Analysis of Its Main Practical Challenges

On subscale flight testing : Cost-effective techniques for research and development

Active Flutter Mitigation Testing on the FLEXOP Demonstrator Aircraft

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About