Active Control for Flexible 2020 Aircraft

01.03.2008 - 31.10.2011
Research funding project
ACFA 2020 deals with innovative active control concepts for highly efficient 2020 aircraft configurations like the blended wing body (BWB) aircraft. Due to the unconventional placement of control surfaces, BWB like aircrafts require multi-channel control architectures for manoeuvres as well as for active rigid body and vibration control. This is regarded as technology step compared to state-of-the-art generally single-channel controllers for conventional aircraft configurations. Moreover promising algorithms such as adaptive feed-forward control and neural network control for active control of BWB like aircrafts will be investigated in ACFA 2020. These multi-channel algorithms will be applied to the large BWB aircraft designed in the VELA and NACRE project as well as to a newly designed 450 passenger aircraft. For this 450 passenger aircraft design a flying wing and a more conventional ultra wide body fuselage with carrythrough wing box will be compared and the configuration which promises highest efficiency with respect to fuel burn will be retained for a more detailed design. The main objective of ACFA 2020 is to provide robust as well as adaptive multi-channel architectures for active control of BWB like aircraft. Due to manoeuvre and gust load alleviation, future aircraft efficiency will be further improved by an ambitious structural weight saving exemplary performed for the new 450 passenger aircraft. Additional expected benefits are significant improvement of ride comfort and handling qualities by reducing turbulence induced vibrations and gust induced rigid body motions.

People

Project leader

Project personnel

Institute

Grant funds

  • European Commission (EU) FP7 I.1 COOPERATION Health 7.Rahmenprogramm für Forschung European Commission - Framework Programme European Commission Call identifier FP7-AAT-2007-RTD-1 Application number FP7-213321

Research focus

  • Sustainable and Low Emission Mobility: 50%
  • Computational System Design: 40%
  • Modeling and Simulation: 10%

Keywords

GermanEnglish
Hocheffizientes FlugzeugHigh Efficiency Aircraft
Nurflügel-FlugzeugBlended Wing Body Aircraft
StrukturregelungStructural Control
Robuste RegelungRobust Control
Adaptive RegelungAdaptive Control

External partner

  • TU München
  • Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt
  • EADS

Publications