Sukru Akif Erturk

Trim Analysis of a Moving-mass Actuated Airplane in Steady Turn

This paper is to follow up on a prior research work on moving-mass actuated airplane without conventional control surfaces. The prior work studied the feasibility of trimming the airplane in a straight level ight by moving an internal mass longitudinally to generate pitching moment. The current research is to study the feasibility of trimming the airplane in steady level turn by two moving masses; one longitudinally and the other one laterally.

Trim Analysis of a Moving-mass Actuated Airplane

This paper investigates the feasibility of trimming an airplane using internal mass motion as moment generation mechanisms. Two internally moving masses are considered: (i) mass moving laterally to generate rolling moment and (ii) mass moving longitudinally to generate pitching moment. These are to replace aileron and elevator, respectively. Various straightlevel ight conditions are considered to determine the trim conditions, particularly the masses and positions of the moving masses. For a small unmanned aerial vehicle, feasible level ight trim conditions are found using only the longitudinal moving mass, without the conventional aerodynamic control surface, elevator. Furthermore, endurance and range of for straight-level ight conditions are determined and compared with the aircraft with elevator.

Controllability Analysis of a Mass-Actuated Airplane

This paper is to follow up on prior work on a mass-actuated airplane that is controlled by internally moving masses instead of conventional control surfaces. The mass-actuated aircraft effectively has two control variables: the internal positions of two control masses, one of which is moved longitudinal along the body x-axis and the other is moved laterally along the wings. Prior works showed feasible trim results of mass actuated airplane during straight level flight and steady state turn with and without side slip angle at constant altitude. This work investigates the controllability of the aircraft with mass actuation. Furthermore, to determine quality or level of controllability by mass-actuation as compared to that by aerodynamic control surfaces, two different methods are used: (i) a measure of controllability based on controllability Gramian and (ii) values of pertaining entries in control/input matrix.

Trimming mass-actuated airplane in turns with zero side slip angle

This paper is to follow up on prior work on a mass-actuated airplane that is controlled by internally moving masses instead of conventional control surfaces. The mass-actuated aircraft effectively has two control variables: the internal positions of two control masses, one of which is moved longitudinal along the body x-axis and the other is moved laterally along the wings. Prior work showed that the mass-actuated aircraft cannot have a trimmed turn at constant altitude without side slip angle. This work investigates whether zero-sideslip-angle turn is possible by two methods: (i) a conventional rudder is used in addition to the two control masses in constant altitude turns, and (ii) only the control masses are used in turns without the constraint of the constant altitude.

Development and Flight Test of Moving-mass Actuated Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Development and Flight Test of Moving-mass Actuated Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Sampath Reddy Vengate, M.S. The University of Texas at Arlington, 2016 Supervising Professors: Dr. Atilla Dogan Conventional airplane control is achieved by aerodynamic control surfaces by generating moments around all the three axes of the aircraft. Deflections of the control surfaces have some disadvantages such as induced drag, increase in radar signature, and exposure to high temperature in high speed applications. As an alternative moment generation mechanism, prior research proposed internal mass-actuation, which is to generate gravitational moment by changing the center of gravity of the aircraft through motion of internal masses within the aircraft. Prior research investigated the feasibility and benefit of internal mass-actuation in airplane control based on simulation analysis. The main focus of this research is to design, build and flight test a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) with internal mass-actuation, as a proof-of-concept. Specifically, this effort has built and flight tested a small electric powered UAV with an internal mass within each wing to generate rolling moment instead of aerodynamic rolling moment by ailerons. The internal structure of each wing is specifically designed to place a linear electric actuator that moves the internal mass. The aircraft is also equipped with all three conventional control surfaces. Most parts of the airplane were laser cut based on 3D CAD designs. The airplane is also equipped with a data ac-

Dynamic Simulation and Control of Mass-Actuated Airplane

A simulation environment is developed for an airplane controlled by internally moving masses (mass actuation), instead of conventional control surfaces (aeroactuation). The mass actuation consists ...

Aircraft Input Prediction in the Presence of Spatially Varying Wind Field

This paper presents a method of input prediction for an aircraft flying in spatially and/or temporally varying wind field. Input prediction is done using inverse simulation to compute the required control variables (control surface deflections and thrust level) for an aircraft to fly through a prescribed trajectory. Various simulation cases are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of input prediction method and the importance of including wind field information in inverse simulations.