Control Authority of a Single-Surface Parafoil with Bleed-Air Spoilers

Abstract

Bleed-air control of ram-air parafoils is a lightweight and cost-effective mechanism that enables significant landing accuracy improvements compared to traditional trailing edge brake control due to the addition of direct glide slope control. Single-surface parafoil canopies have been shown to be lightweight and possess similar flight behavior as their ram-air counterparts. The design of bleed-air spoilers is more challenging for single-surface canopies, which lack the internal ram-air that provides a high pressure differential at any chordwise location. This paper explores bleed-air spoilers on single-surface parafoils with a focus on turn rate and glide slope control capabilities. Through a flight test campaign, it was shown that bleed-air spoilers on a single-surface parafoil provide both turn rate control from asymmetric vent opening and glide slope change from symmetric vent opening. Vents located far forward at the 10% chord location yield substantial control response with a maximum turn rate response of 38 deg/s and a maximum glide slope change of 58%. Vents located farther aft at 30, 50, and 70% chords demonstrated diminished control authority. Varying the spanwise locations of the spoilers revealed that the outermost vents had negligible lateral and longitudinal control authority.