Feedback Control of Integrally Actuated Membrane Wings: A Computational Study

The paper is an investigation on computational modelling and control system design of integrally actuated membrane wings. A high-fidelity electro-aeromechanical model is used for the simulation of the dynamic fluid-structure interaction between a low-Reynoldsnumber flow and a dielectric elastomer wing. A reduced-order model is obtained coupling a modal structural description with a linearisation of the fluid equations based on the Proper Orthogonal Decomposition. The low-order system is then used for the design of Proportional-Integral-Derivative and Linear Quadratic Gaussian feedback schemes for the control of the wing lift coefficient. When implemented in the high-fidelity model closedloop dynamics are in very good agreement with the reduced-order model, demonstrating the suitability of the approach. Finally, the designed controllers are used to track required aerodynamic performance and compensate for prescribed disturbances of the inlet flow conditions. The control laws selected in this work were found to be effective only for lowfrequency disturbances due to the large phase delay introduced by the fluid convective timescales but the numerical results demonstrates the potential for the aerodynamic control of membrane wings in outdoor flight using dielectric elastomers.

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