The Department of Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering welcomes Sai Simon, PhD Candidate. As an extension of his PhD Thesis Defense, Simon will present “Flight Control of Tailless Aircraft with Active Flow Control.” This event is open to the pubslic and will take place on Wednesday, November 12, from 12:45–1:45 p.m. in Stuart Building, room 104. Simon’s advisor is Professor David Williams.

Abstract

Active flow control has been developed and used for performance enhancement but its application for flight control purposes has been a challenging yet popular topic in the community in recent years. The technology on tailless aircraft is especially of high interest for aerodynamic and inertial efficiency.

In this presentation, the efforts in creating a database of active flow control effectiveness on a tailless delta wing UAV through wind tunnel and flight tests are discussed. Using the database, a unique open-loop side slip control maneuver was designed, and its flight test results are presented. Finally, a simple control allocation scheme is proposed for closed-loop flight stabilization and control with active flow control.