An aircraft-manipulator system for virtual flight testing of longitudinal flight dynamics

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorIshola, Ademayowa A.
dc.contributor.authorWhidborne, James F.
dc.contributor.authorTang, Gilbert
dc.date.accessioned2024-12-20T13:26:38Z
dc.date.available2024-12-20T13:26:38Z
dc.date.freetoread2024-12-20
dc.date.issued2024-12-15
dc.date.pubOnline2024-12-15
dc.description.abstractA virtual flight test is the process of flying an aircraft model inside a wind tunnel in a manner that replicates free-flight. In this paper, a 3-DOF aircraft-manipulator system is proposed that can be used for longitudinal dynamics virtual flight tests. The system consists of a two rotational degrees-of-freedom manipulator arm with an aircraft wind tunnel model attached to the third joint. This aircraft-manipulator system is constrained to operate for only the longitudinal motion of the aircraft. Thus, the manipulator controls the surge and heave of the aircraft whilst the pitch is free to rotate and can be actively controlled by means of an all-moving tailplane of the aircraft if required. In this initial study, a flight dynamics model of the aircraft is used to obtain dynamic response trajectories of the aircraft in free-flight. A model of the coupled aircraft-manipulator system developed using the Euler method is presented, and PID controllers are used to control the manipulator so that the aircraft follows the free-flight trajectory (with respect to the air). The inverse kinematics are used to produce the reference joint angles for the manipulator. The system is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink and a virtual flight test trajectory is compared with a free-flight test trajectory, demonstrating the potential of the proposed system for virtual flight tests.
dc.description.journalNameRobotics
dc.description.sponsorshipThis research is partly funded by the Tertiary Educational Trust Fund (TETFUND) Nigeria, grant number TETF/ES/UNIV/OGUNSTATE/TSAS/2020.
dc.identifier.citationIshola AA, Whidborne JF, Tang G. (2024) An aircraft-manipulator system for virtual flight testing of longitudinal flight dynamics. Robotics, Volume 13, Issue 12, December 2024, Article number 179
dc.identifier.eissn2218-6581
dc.identifier.elementsID560556
dc.identifier.issueNo12
dc.identifier.paperNo179
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.3390/robotics13120179
dc.identifier.urihttps://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/23315
dc.identifier.volumeNo13
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherMDPI
dc.publisher.urihttps://www.mdpi.com/2218-6581/13/12/179
dc.relation.isreferencedbyhttps://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/20712
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 Internationalen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subjectflight dynamics
dc.subjectaircraft manipulator
dc.subjectwind tunnel test
dc.subjectsimulation
dc.subjectrobot manipulator
dc.subjectvirtual flight test
dc.titleAn aircraft-manipulator system for virtual flight testing of longitudinal flight dynamics
dc.typeArticle
dcterms.dateAccepted2024-12-10

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
An_Aircraft-Manipulator_System-2024.pdf
Size:
9.07 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.63 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download

Collections

Staff publications (SATM)