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Structured control laws for flexible wing concepts
Author: Filip Svoboda
Developments in the field of aviation have been constantly pushing the boundaries of aircraft in terms of dynamics, performance, and efficiency. Concepts which were previously only theoretical, are now becoming feasible thanks to new materials, actuators, control systems, and other technologies. Wings are becoming lighter, more efficient, and more flexible with composite materials and new designs. This brings new challenges in terms of control and safety. In parallel, new concepts such as morphing wings, are replacing conventional control surfaces with a smooth and deformable wing, which deforms in a controlled manner and thereby ensures the function of the control surfaces. This work deals with the design of structured control laws motivated by developments in flexible and morphing wings. The dynamics of these systems tend to be quite complex. However, we can recognize specific structures and identify links within the system to guide the control design. With an appropriate interpretation of the model and the mentioned links, control design can be approached in a structured way. The advantages of such approach are the distribution of the task into smaller and more manageable units, easy scaling, and intuitive tuning. The design of decentralized control laws based on the system’s structure is firstly presented on a one-dimensional structure in Chapter 2. However, the mentioned approach cannot be directly applied to multidimensional systems which are the main motivation of this work. Therefore, a second algorithm for the control law synthesis is proposed in Chapter 3. Even in this case, the task is simplified, but it already uses LMIs and other principles, which are expanded in the fourth chapter, where the controlled systém is a wing model represented by a FEM structure together with a model of actuators and aerodynamics.