A STUDY OF FLIGHT DYNAMICS AND AUTOMATIC CONTROL OF AN ANIMALOPTER

The key problem is to construct the proper computational models for the simulation of controlled animalopter motion. In the paper investigating control efficiency of stabilization of an animalopter plane motion is also presented. The following assumptions are made: the motion may be decomposed into flapping and feathering; each wing is rigid and rotates about the common axis; aerodynamic forces coming from airfoils have periodical character; the wing vortices are generated at the trailing edge only; the shape of the wake is determined from calculations via a time-stepping procedure. The modified strip theory and modified panel method are used for computing the unsteady flows of animalopter flight. A linear dependence of aerodynamic force on feathering angles is assumed. In the proposed model the control of the motion is performed by rudder deflection and by feathering angle amplitude. Synthesis of control has been conducted on the basis of nonlinear inverse dynamics. In order to verify applied calculating models, experimental investigations in wind tunnel at Institute of Aeronautics and Applied Mechanics of Warsaw University of Technology have been performed.