Structural load alleviation using distributed delay shaper: Application to flexible aircraft

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd Lightweight flexible aircraft suffers from unwanted oscillatory vibrations during aircraft manoeuvres. A recently developed distributed-delay signal (DZV) shaper is therefore proposed to be applied as a feedforward controller to alleviate the manoeuvre loads, as an alternative to traditional structural filters used routinely in this context. Structural filters are essentially linear low-pass filters with bandwidth below the significant flexible modes, applied to control signals generated either by the pilot's direct input or by the flight control system. It has been showed that if instead a properly tuned signal shaper is used, better performance can be achieved: first, the target modes are significantly attenuated while the responsiveness of the aircraft is less compromised and secondly, the oscillatory nature of the vibrations are reduced. The high fidelity simulation results on a full scaled dynamic model of a highly flexible blended wing–body (BWB) aircraft show that in comparison to traditional structural filters, signal shapers significantly reduce the wing root loading (forces and moments) which provides potential structural benefits

MIT Space Engineering Research Center

The Space Engineering Research Center (SERC) at MIT, started in Jul. 1988, has completed two years of research. The Center is approaching the operational phase of its first testbed, is midway through the construction of a second testbed, and is in the design phase of a third. We presently have seven participating faculty, four participating staff members, ten graduate students, and numerous undergraduates. This report reviews the testbed programs, individual graduate research, other SERC activities not funded by the Center, interaction with non-MIT organizations, and SERC milestones. Published papers made possible by SERC funding are included at the end of the report

Optimal Trajectories for Vibration Reduction Based on Exponential Filters

In this paper, a new type of trajectory, based on an exponential jerk, is presented along with filters for their online generation. The goal is to generalize constant jerk trajectories, widely used in industrial applications, in order to reduce vibrations of motion systems. As a matter of fact, constant jerk trajectories do not assure a complete vibration suppression when the damping of the resonant modes is not negligible. The values of the parameters (decay rate and duration) of the jerk impulses that allow residual vibration cancellation are derived in an analytical way as a function of the dynamic characteristics of the plant. Comparisons with the well-known input shaping techniques and with system-inversion-based filters show the advantages of the proposed method in terms of robustness with respect to modeling errors, smoothness of the resulting trajectory, and time duration of the motion under velocity and acceleration constraints

Control of flexible mechanical set-up with time delays in the feedback

Cílem této práce je navrhnout řízení laboratorní soustavy skládající se z ak tivně poháněného vozíku s pasivně při-pojeným vozíkem a kyvadelem. Síťová řídící architektura je použita pro přená-šení řídícího a zpětnovazebního signálu prostřednictvím internetového komu-nikačního protokolu. Pro laboratorní soustavu byl odvozen a identifikován matematicky model za účelem návrhu řízení soustavy. Pro potlačení vibrací flexibilních mechanických části soustavy byl použit nový typ tvarovače signálu s distribuovaným dopravním zpožděním, jenž byl v inverzní formě zapojený ve zpětné vazbě. Proporcionálně derivační regulátor pro řízení polohy vozíku je na-vržen s ohledem na dopravní zpoždění způosbené přenosem signálů internetem a tvarovačem signálů ve zpětné vazbě.The goal of this thesis is to design a control system of a laboratory set-up that consists of an active cart with a passively connected cart and pendulum. The networked control architecture is used to transmit a control signal together with a feedback signal via Internet communication protocols. A mathematical model of the laboratory set-up is derived and subsequently identified for the control design purposes. A novel type of zero vibration shaper with distributed time-delay is applied in an inverse form in the feedback path in order to suppress oscillations of flexible parts. A classical proportional derivative controller is designed with respect to introduced time-delays caused by transmission and signal shaper

Dynamics and Control of Smart Structures for Space Applications

Smart materials are one of the key emerging technologies for a variety of space systems ranging in their applications from instrumentation to structural design. The underlying principle of smart materials is that they are materials that can change their properties based on an input, typically a voltage or current. When these materials are incorporated into structures, they create smart structures. This work is concerned with the dynamics and control of three smart structures: a membrane structure with shape memory alloys for control of the membrane surface flatness, a flexible manipulator with a collocated piezoelectric sensor/actuator pair for active vibration control, and a piezoelectric nanopositioner for control of instrumentation. Shape memory alloys are used to control the surface flatness of a prototype membrane structure. As these actuators exhibit a hysteretic nonlinearity, they need their own controller to operate as required. The membrane structures surface flatness is then controlled by the shape memory alloys, and two techniques are developed: genetic algorithm and proportional-integral controllers. This would represent the removal of one of the main obstacles preventing the use of membrane structures in space for high precision applications, such as a C-band synthetic aperture radar antenna. Next, an adaptive positive position feedback law is developed for control of a structure with a collocated piezoelectric sensor/actuator pair, with unknown natural frequencies. This control law is then combined with the input shaping technique for slew maneuvers of a single-link flexible manipulator. As an alternative to the adaptive positive position feedback law, genetic algorithms are investigated as both system identification techniques and as a tool for optimal controller design in vibration suppression. These controllers are all verified through both simulation and experiments. The third area of investigation is on the nonlinear dynamics and control of piezoelectric actuators for nanopositioning applications. A state feedback integral plus double integral synchronization controller is designed to allow the piezoelectrics to form the basis of an ultra-precise 2-D Fabry-Perot interferometer as the gap spacing of the device could be controlled at the nanometer level. Next, an output feedback linear integral control law is examined explicitly for the piezoelectric actuators with its nonlinear behaviour modeled as an input nonlinearity to a linear system. Conditions for asymptotic stability are established and then the analysis is extended to the derivation of an output feedback integral synchronization controller that guarantees global asymptotic stability under input nonlinearities. Experiments are then performed to validate the analysis. In this work, the dynamics and control of these smart structures are addressed in the context of their three applications. The main objective of this work is to develop effective and reliable control strategies for smart structures that broaden their applicability to space systems

Dynamic modelling and control of a flexible manoeuvring system.

In this research a twin rotor multi-input multi-output system (TRMS), which is a laboratory platform with 2 degrees of freedom (DOF) is considered. Although, the TRMS does not fly, it has a striking similarity with a helicopter, such as system nonlinearities and cross-coupled modes. Therefore, the TRMS can be perceived as an unconventional and complex "air vehicle" that poses formidable challenges in modelling, control design and analysis, and implementation. These issues constitute the scope of this research. Linear and nonlinear models for the vertical movement of the TRMS are obtained via system identification techniques using black-box modelling. The approach yields input-output models without a priori defined model structure or specific parameter settings reflecting any physical attributes of the system. Firstly, linear parametric models, characterising the TRMS in its hovering operation mode, are obtained using the potential of recursive least squares (RLS) estimation and genetic algorithms (GAs). Further, a nonlinear model using multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural networks (NNs) is obtained. Such a high fidelity nonlinear model is often required for nonlinear system simulation studies and is commonly employed in the aerospace industry. Both time and frequency domain analyses are utilised to investigate and develop confidence in the models obtained. The frequency domain verification method is a useful tool in the validation of extracted parametric models. It allows high-fidelity verification of dynamic characteristics over a frequency range of interest. The resulting models are utilized in designing controllers for low frequency vibration suppression, development of suitable feedback control laws for set-point tracking, and design of augmented feedforward and feedback control schemes for both vibration suppression and set-point tracking performance. The modelling approaches presented here are shown to be suitable for modelling complex new generation air vehicles, whose flight mechanics are not well understood. Modelling of the TRMS revealed the presence of resonance modes, which are responsible for inducing unwanted vibrations in the system. Command shaping 11 control strategies are developed to reduce motion and uneven mass induced vibrations, produced by the main rotor during the vertical movement around the lateral axis of the TRMS rig. 2-impulse, 3-impulse and 4-impulse sequence input shapers and Iow-pass and band-stop digital filters are developed to shape the command signals such that the resonance modes are not overly excited. The effectiveness of this concept is then demonstrated in both simulation and real-time experimental environments in terms of level of vibration reduction using power spectral density profiles of the system response. Combinations of intelligent and conventional techniques are commonly used the control of complex dynamic systems. Such hybrid schemes have proved to be efficient and can overcome the deficiencies of conventional and intelligent controllers alone. The current study is confined to the development of two forms of hybrid control schemes that combine fuzzy control and conventional PID compensator for input tracking performance. The two hybrid control strategies comprising conventional PO control plus PlO compensator and PO-type fuzzy control plus PlO compensator are developed and implemented for set-point tracking control of the vertical movement of the TRMS rig. It is observed that the hybrid control schemes are superior to other feedback control strategies namely, PlO compensator, pure PO-type and PI-type fuzzy controllers in terms of time domain system behaviour. This research also witnesses investigations into the development of an augmented feedforward and feedback control scheme (AFFCS) for the control of rigid body motion and vibration suppression of the TRMS. The main goal of this framework is to satisfy performance objectives in terms of robust command tracking, fast system response and minimum residual vibration. The developed control strategies have been designed and implemented within both simulation and real-time environments of the TRMS rig. The employed control strategies are shown to demonstrate acceptable performances. The obtained results show that much improved tracking is achieved on positive and negative cycles of the reference signal, as compared to that without any control action. The system performance with the feedback controller is significantly improved when the feedforward control component is added. This leads to the conclusion that augmenting feedback control with feedforward method can lead to more practical and accurate control of flexible systems such as the TRMS

Natural oscillations of underactuated cable-driven parallel robots

Underactuated Cable-Driven Parallel Robots (CDPR) employ a number of cables smaller than the degrees of freedom (DoFs) of the end-effector (EE) that they control. As a consequence, the EE is underconstrained and preserves some freedoms even when all actuators are locked, which may lead to undesirable oscillations. This paper proposes a methodology for the computation of the EE natural oscillation frequencies, whose knowledge has proven to be convenient for control purposes. This procedure, based on the linearization of the system internal dynamics about equilibrium con_gurations, can be applied to a generic robot suspended by any number of cables comprised between 2 and 5. The kinematics, dynamics, stability and stiffness of the robot free motion are investigated in detail. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated by experiments on 6-DoF prototypes actuated by 2, 3, and 4 cables. Additionally, in order to highlight the interest in a robotic context, this modelling strategy is applied to the trajectory planning of a 6-DoF 4-cable CDPR by means of a frequency-based method (multi-mode input shaping), and the latter is experimentally compared with traditional non-frequency-based motion planners

Manipulating liquids with robots: A sloshing-free solution

This paper addresses the problem of suppressing sloshing dynamics in liquid handling robotic systems by an appropriate design of position/orientation trajectories. Specifically, a dynamic system, i.e. the exponential filter, is used to filter the desired trajectory for the liquid-filled vessel moved by the robot and counteract the sloshing effect. To this aim, the vessel has been modelled as a spherical pendulum of proper mass/length subject to the accelerations imposed by the robot and the problem has been approached in terms of vibration suppression to cancel the residual oscillations of the pendulum, i.e. the pendulum swing at the end of the reference rest-to-rest motion. In addition, in order to reduce the relative motion between liquid and vessel, an orientation compensation mechanism has been devised aiming to maintain the vessel aligned with the pendulum during the motion. The effectiveness of the proposed approach, both in simple point-to-point motions and complex multi-point trajectories, has been proved by means of an exhaustive set of experimental tests on an industrial manipulator that moves a cylindrical vessel filled with water. This innovative solution effectively uses all the degrees of freedom of the robotic manipulator to successfully suppress sloshing, thus significantly improving the performances of the robotic system. Furthermore, the proposed solution, showing a high degree of robustness as well as intrinsic design simplicity, is very promising for designing novel industrial robotics applications with a short time-to-market across key manufacturing sectors (e.g., food and beverage, among others)