An Active Flutter Suppression (AFS) Project: Overview, Results and Lessons Learned

The paper describes the development of a new state of the art large wind tunnel model for active flutter suppression studies as well as the supporting techniques used in tests focused on the effects of uncertainty. Design guidelines and the resulting aeroelastic characteristics of the model are covered together with representative test results. Those would allow other researchers working in this area to develop control laws for the new model and evaluate them. A number of important lessons and insight are reported regarding the design of the model, the level of success of commonly used mathematical modeling techniques to capture its behavior, sources of analysis / test correlation discrepancies, multi-function utilization of control surfaces for both system identification and flutter suppression, active flutter suppression testing safety, and techniques for estimating by tests of the robustness of closed-loop active aeroservoelastic systems.