Gust Load Alleviation with Robust Control for a Flexible Wing

Abstract

Traditional methods for gust alleviation of aircraft are mostly proposed based on a specific flight condition. In this paper, robust control laws are designed for a large flexible wing with uncertainty in Mach number and dynamic pressure. To accurately describe the aeroelastic model over a large flight envelope, a nonlinear parameter-varying model is developed which is a function of both Mach number and dynamic pressure. Then a linear fractional transformation is established accordingly and a modified model order reduction technique is applied to reduce the size of the uncertainty block. The developed model, in which the statistic nature of the gust is considered by using the Dryden power spectral density function, enables the use ofμ-synthesis procedures for controller design. The simulations show that theμcontroller can always effectively reduce the wing root shear force and bending moment at a given range of Mach number and dynamic pressure.