Linear Time Invariant Models for Integrated Flight and Rotor Control

Recent developments on individual blade control (IBC) and physics based reduced order models of various on-blade control (OBC) actuation concepts are opening up opportunities to explore innovative rotor control strategies for improved rotor aerodynamic performance, reduced vibration and BVI noise, and improved rotor stability, etc. Further, recent developments in computationally efficient algorithms for the extraction of Linear Time Invariant (LTI) models are providing a convenient framework for exploring integrated flight and rotor control, while accounting for the important couplings that exist between body and low frequency rotor response and high frequency rotor response. Formulation of linear time invariant (LTI) models of a nonlinear system about a periodic equilibrium using the harmonic domain representation of LTI model states has been studied in the literature. This thesis presents an alternative method and a computationally efficient scheme for implementation of the developed method for extraction of linear time invariant (LTI) models from a helicopter nonlinear model in forward flight. The fidelity of the extracted LTI models is evaluated using response comparisons between the extracted LTI models and the nonlinear model in both time and frequency domains. Moreover, the fidelity of stability properties is studied through the eigenvalue and eigenvector comparisons between LTI and LTP models by making use of the Floquet Transition Matrix. For time domain evaluations, individual blade control (IBC) and On-Blade Control (OBC) inputs that have been tried in the literature for vibration and noise control studies are used. For frequency domain evaluations, frequency sweep inputs are used to obtain frequency responses of fixed system hub loads to a single blade IBC input. The evaluation results demonstrate the fidelity of the extracted LTI models, and thus, establish the validity of the LTI model extraction process for use in integrated flight and rotor control studies.