Flutter suppression digital control law design and testing for the AFW wind tunnel model

Abstract

Design of a control law for simultaneously suppressing the symmetric and antisymmetric flutter modes of a string mounted fixed-in-roll aeroelastic wind tunnel model is described. The flutter suppression control law was designed using linear quadratic Gaussian theory and involved control law order reduction, a gain root-locus study, and the use of previous experimental results. A 23 percent increase in open-loop flutter dynamic pressure was demonstrated during the wind tunnel test. Rapid roll maneuvers at 11 percent above the symmetric flutter boundary were also performed when the model was in a free-to-roll configuration.