Damage-Mitigating Control of Aerospace Systems for High Performance and Extended Life

The concept of damage-mitigating control is to minimize fatigue (as well as creep and corrosion) damage of critical components of mechanical structures while simultaneously maximizing the system dynamic performance. Given a dynamic model of the plant (for example, the turbofan engine, and frame of advanced aircraft, or the reusable rocket engine for space propulsion) and the specifications for performance and stability robustness, the task is to synthesize a control law that would meet the system requirements and, at the same time, satisfy the constraints that are imposed by the material and structural properties of the critical components. This paper presents the concept of damage-mitigating control systems design with the following objectives: (1) to achieve high performance with a prolonged life span; and (ii) to systematically update controller as the new technology of advanced meterials envolves. The major challenge is to extract the information from the material properties and them utilize this information in a mathematical form such that it can be directly applied to robust control synthesis for mechanical systems.