Optimal location of centre of gravity for swashplateless helicopter UAV and MAV

To investigate the use of centre of gravity location on reducing cyclic pitch control for helicopter UAV's (unmanned air vehicles) and MAV's (micro air vehicles). Low cyclic pitch is a necessity to implement the swashplateless rotor concept using trailing edge flaps or active twist using current generation low authority piezoceramic actuators. Design/methodology/approach – An aeroelastic analysis of the helicopter rotor with elastic blades is used to perform parametric and sensitivity studies of the effects of longitudinal and lateral center of gravity (cg) movements on the main rotor cyclic pitch. An optimization approach is then used to find cg locations which reduce the cyclic pitch at a given forward speed. Findings – It is found that the longitudinal cyclic pitch and lateral cyclic pitch can be driven to zero at a given forward speed by shifting the cg forward and to the port side, respectively. There also exist pairs of numbers for the longitudinal and lateral cg locations which drive both the cyclic pitch components to zero at a given forward speed. Based on these results, a compromise optimal cg location is obtained such that the cyclic pitch is bounded within ±5° for a BO105 helicopter rotor. Originality/value – The reduction in the cyclic pitch due to helicopter cg location is found to significantly reduce the maximum magnitudes of the control angles in flight, facilitating the swashplateless rotor concept. In addition, the existence of cg locations which drive the cyclic pitches to zero allows for the use of active cg movement as a way to replace the cyclic pitch control for helicopter MAV's.

Fractal dimension method for delamination detection in composite beams

A new delaminated composite beam element is formulated for Timoshenko as well as Euler-Bernoulli beam models. Shape functions are derived from Timoshenko functions; this provides a unified formulation for slender to moderately deep beam analyses. The element is simple and easy to implement, results are on par with those from free mode delamination models. Katz fractal dimension method is applied on the mode shapes obtained from finite element models, to detect the delamination in the beam. The effect of finite element size on fractal dimension method of delamination detection is quantified.

Closed-form nonlinear sectional analysis of pretwisted anisotropic beam with multiple delaminations

Fiber reinforced laminated composite open-section beams are widely used as bearingless rotor flex beams because of their high specific strength and stiffness as well as fatigue life. These laminated composite structures exhibit a number of different failure modes, including fiber-matrix debonding within individual layers, delamination or separation of the layers, transverse cracks through one or more layers and fiber fracture. Delamination is a predominant failure mode in continuous fiber reinforced laminated composites and often initiate near the free edges of the structure. The appearance of delaminations in the composite rotorcraft flexbeams can lead to deterioration of the mechanical properties and, in turn, the helicopter performance as well as safety. Understanding and predicting the influence of free-edge delamination on the overall behavior of the laminates will provide quantitative measures of the extent of the damage and help ensure their damage tolerance.

基于MIT规则的自适应Unscented卡尔曼滤波及其在旋翼飞行机器人容错控制的应用

提出一种新颖的基于MIT规则的自适应Unscented卡尔曼滤波(Unscented Kalman filter,UKF)算法,用来进行参数以及状态的联合估计。针对旋翼飞行机器人执行器提出一种执行器健康因子(Actuator health coefficients,AHCs)的故障模型结构,应用自适应UKF对AHCs参数进行在线估计,将联合估计的状态以及故障参数引入基于模型的反馈线性化控制结构,组成完整的容错控制系统。提出的自适应UKF算法以及容错控制结构经过中科院沈阳自动化研究所ServoHeli-20旋翼无人智能平台数学模型进行仿真试验验证,效果良好。

旋翼飞行机器人故障诊断与容错控制技术综述

对故障诊断和容错技术的发展过程进行了简要概述,以旋翼飞行机器人为研究对象,在分析了旋翼飞行机器人故障诊断与容错控制特点的基础上,介绍了当前国内外在该领域的研究进展和主要方法.最后,总结了该领域待解决的难点问题,并指出了该研究领域的发展趋势.

Application of fractional controllers for quad rotor

This paper studies the application of fractional algorithms in the control of a quad-rotor rotorcraft. The development of a flight simulator provide the evaluation of the controller algorithm. Several basic maneuvers are investigated, namely the elevation and the position control.