The engineers provide a tool for the aeroservoelastic analysis of rotary-wing aircraft, including tiltrotors. Rather than creating an entirely new, monolithic rotorcraft aeroservoelastic simulation software capable of providing all of modeling capabilities required by modern rotorcraft, each feature has been gathered from well-known, reliable, and possibly state-of-the-art source, and it was further combined in a general-purpose mathematical environment. Because of the inherent modularity of the system, it is simple to add new features as many as needed to solve specific challenges.
The tool is handy for analyzing aeroservoelastic stability, developing and modifying dynamic controllers, and investigating their aeroelastic interactions with Flight Control Systems. The integration of state-space aircraft aeroservoelastic numerical models into a general-purpose mathematical framework enables state-space-based modern control theory techniques to be exploited.
The use of aircraft control linked with aeroelasticity, or the integration of aeroelastic effects in aircraft control design, spawned a new term, Aeroservoelasticity, which has been popular in recent years in aeronautical engineering. Noll and Eastep discussed the increasing importance of aeroelasticity and aeroservoelasticity in the vehicle conceptual and preliminary design processes in an Editorial of a Special Issue of the AIAA Journal of Aircraft regarding the Active Flexible Wing Program. The Research Laboratory in Active Controls, Avionics, and Aeroservoelasticity (LARCASE) conducts thorough research in the aeroservoelasticity field, which is headed by Dr. Ruxandra Botez who is considered a world authority in the field of aeronautics. She has worked on the Level D flight simulator certification of the Bell-427 helicopter based on flight tests in collaboration with Bell Textron and IAR-NRC.
Aeroservoelastic stability evaluations are required for flight control law clearance, whether the control laws are designed to influence aeroelastic behavior, such as flutter suppression functions, or are developed for manual or autonomous flight control of the aircraft. Integrated aeroelastic models are still only used for flight control validation in significant aircraft companies, not for flight control system development.
Based on Fielding and Luckner considerations, a schematic flow chart depicting the industrial flight control law design process shows that aeroservoelastic evaluations are performed only after the off-line design. The expenses related to these systems development are also very substantial, preventing small aircraft businesses from using them. It is also required, according to Kruger, to provide faster and less expensive techniques for the stability study of tiny, sport aircraft.
