Flight testing of a model aircraft with trailing-edge flaps optimized for lift distribution control

This paper describes the flight testing of a model aircraft with segmented trailing-edge flaps optimized for lift distribution control. The Rascal testbed aircraft implements a custom-built wing with a set of optimized flaps, selectively located pressure sensors, and a custom-built data acquisition and flight control system. The spatial distribution of the trailing-edge flaps was selected using a shape optimization method and resulted in a wing that can produce a desired lift distribution with minimum integrated mean-squared error. The lift distribution is measured using a simple sensing mechanism with a pressure differential metric that approximates the lift coefficient at select span-wise locations on the wing. During flight testing, the trailing-edge flaps are deflected to produce specific lift distributions in an open-loop manner. Results are presented for windowed data sets from 3 flight tests showing the expected and the measured lift distributions. Copyright 2008 by Nelson M. Guerreiro and James E. Hubbard, Jr.

Flight testing of a model aircraft with trailing-edge flaps optimized for lift distribution control Conference Paper