Experimental Feedback Control of Flow-Induced Cavity Tones

Abstract

Discrete-time, linear quadratic methods were used to design feedback controllers for reducing tones generated by flow over a cavity. The dynamics of a synthetic jet actuator mounted at the leading edge of the cavity as observed by two microphones in the cavity were modeled over a broad frequency range using state space models computed from experimental data. Variations in closed loop performance as a function of model order, control order, control bandwidth, and state estimator design were studied using a cavity in the Probe Calibration Tunnel at NASA Langley. The controller successfully reduced the levels of multiple cavity tones at the tested flow speeds of Mach 0.275, 0.35, and 0.45. In some cases, the closed loop results were limited by excitation of sidebands of the cavity tones, or the creation of new tones at frequencies away from the cavity tones. Nonetheless, the results validate the combination of optimal control and experimentally-generated state space models, and suggest this approach may be useful for other flow control problems. The models were not able to account for non-linear dynamics, such as interactions between tones at different frequencies.