Flight Control Design

Lecture 6: Aircraft response to control or atmospheric inputs

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Introduction
• The free response of an airplane previously examined was done for only step changes in control input, one of
the other important inputs to examine are sinusoidal inputs.
• Two reasons to examine step and sinusoidal inputs which are:
• The input to many physical systems takes the form of either a step change or sinusoidal signak.
• An arbitrary function can be represented by a series of step changes or a periodic function can be
decomposed using Fourier analysis into a series of sinusoidal waves.
• The response of the system is completely described by the ratio of the output to input amplitude and the phase
difference, over the frequency range from zero to infinity.
• The magnitude and phase relationship between the input and output signals is called the frequency response,
which can be obtained from the system transfer function by replacing the Laplace variable s by iw, and thus can
be represented by a rectangular plot, log-log or semi-log plot of the magnitude and phase angle versus the
frequency.

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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Introduction
• Consider the factored form of the transfer function,

• Substituting s by iw we get the following,

• The log of the transfer function is given as

Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Introduction- frequency response application
• The magnitude of the transfer function in terms of logarithms is simply obtained
by the addition of individual factors, in decibels (dB) as
• Frequency information are given by two graphs representing the magnitude and
the phase angle variation with respect to the frequency. Both plots are called
Bode diagrams.
• Consider the longitudinal pitch angle to elevator transfer function,

• Written in the factored form as

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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Introduction- frequency response application
• The magnitude and phase angle of the pitch angle of the pitch altitude elevator control transfer function is
obtained by replacing s by jw as the following

• Example: Corporate Business Jet frequency response for the pitch attitude to control deflection

The amplitude ratio at both the The frequency response for the The frequency response for the change
phugoid and short period frequency change in forward speed to control in angle of attack to control input for the
are of comparable magnitude input for the same aircraft. same aircraft.
Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Introduction- frequency response application
• Recall that in the phugoid approximation the angle of attack was assumed to be
constant. The phase plot shows that there is a large phase lag in the response of
the speed change to elevator inputs.
• The phase lag for a α/δ is much smaller, which means that the angle of attack
will respond faster than the change in forward speed to an elevator input.
• Frequency response techniques are also useful in studying the motion of an
aircraft encountering atmosphere turbulence.
• The equations of motion were developed for flight in a stationary atmosphere.
In this chapter we will study the influence of wind gusts, i.e. turbulence, on
aircraft response.

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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Equations of motion in a nonuniform atmosphere
• The aerodynamic forces and moments acting on the airplane depend on the
relative motion of the airplane to the atmosphere and not on the inertial
velocities.
• Therefore, to account for atmospheric disturbances such as winds, gusts, or
turbulence, the forces and moments must be related to the relative motion with
respect to the atmosphere.
• The velocities used to calculate the aerodynamic are given as,

• Where Δ refers to the perturbations and g is the gust terms.

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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Equations of motion in a nonuniform atmosphere
• The aerodynamic forces and moments acting on the airplane can be expressed
as,

• The disturbances in the atmosphere can be described by the spatial and

temporal variations in the gust components. The rotational gusts arise from the
variation of the translational components with position and time.
• The rotary gusts occur due to the spatial variations of the gust components.8
Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Equations of motion in a nonuniform atmosphere
• The linear variation of velocity across the span is the same as that produced on a rolling wing
• The velocity normal to the wing at some point along the span is given by;
w=py

• The rotary gust velocity in terms of the gradient in the vertical gust field is expressed as the following,

• Similarly the variation of the vertical gust velocity along the X axis of the airplane is similar to the velocity
distribution created on a pitching airplane.

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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Equations of motion in a nonuniform atmosphere
• The equations of motion, modified to account for atmospheric disturbances can be written in the steady-state
form as follows;

• The longitudinal and lateral gust transfer functions can be determined by taking the Laplace
transform of the previous two equations and then dividing by the gust function
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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Pure vertical or plunging motion
• Consider an airplane constrained so that only movement in
the vertical direction is possible, which can be simulated in
the wind tunnel using a model constrained by a vertical
rod. Thus the model is free to move up or down along the
rod, but no other motion is possible.
• The equation of motion for this example is given as;

• Assuming that the airplane is confined to small

perturbations from an initial unaccelerated flight condition,
then the aerodynamic force and vertical velocity can be
expressed as the sum of the reference flight condition plus
the perturbation:
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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Pure vertical or plunging motion
• Substituting these relationships in the previous equations we get the following;

• For an unaccelerated flight (equilibrium condition), the equation simplifies to the following,

• The aerodynamic force acting on the airplane is a function of the angle of attack and time rate of change of the attack,
and can be expressed in terms of the stability derivatives as follows,

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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Pure vertical or plunging motion
• To simplify our analysis we will assume that the lag in lift term, , is
negligible in comparison to the term.
• The change in angle of attack experienced by the airplane is due to its motion
in the vertical direction and also to the vertical wind gust. The angle of attack
can be written as,

• After some mathematical manipulations, we get

First order DE with cte coeff

• The last equation is therefore written as

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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Pure vertical or plunging motion
• The solution of for a sharp-edged or sinusoidal gust wg(t) will now be
examined, since that they occur quite often in nature, as shown in the figure
below,

• The construction of an arbitrary gust profile for both sinusoidal and step changes
are shown in the figure below,

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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Pure vertical or plunging motion
• The transient response of an airplane to an encounter with a sharp-edged gust can be modeled
by expressing the gust profile as a step function:

• Where u(t) is a unit step change and Ag is the magnitude of the gust.
• The solution of the step input response

• Using Laplace transform

• Given that the forcing function or input is a step change in the gust velocity, then
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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Pure vertical or plunging motion
• Using the inverse Laplace transform we get

• The vertical velocity of the airplane grows exponentially

from zero to a final value of Ag. The initial slope of the curve
at t=0 is given by the derivative

• Τ is the system time constant, that gives an approximation of

how fast our system approaches a new steady-state condition
after disturbance.
• If the time constant is small, the system will respond very
the response of the airplane to a
rapidly; if the time constant is large, the system will respond sharp-edged gust
very slowly. 16
Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Pure vertical or plunging motion
• The vehicle's response can be obtained by looking at the maximum acceleration of the airplane. The maximum
acceleration occurs at t=0:

• The change in load factor due to a sharp-edged gust is therefore given as;

• The load factor equation indicates that airplanes having low wing loading WT/S will be much more responsive
to the influence of vertical wing gust than airplanes with high wing loadings.
• The takeoff and landing performance of an airplane can be shown to be a function of wing loading WT/S.
• Airplanes having a low wing loading will, in general, have short takeoff and landing field requirements.
• Airplanes designed for minimum runway requirements such as short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) aircraft will
have low wing loadings compared with conventional transport and fighter airplanes and, therefore, should be
more responsive to atmospheric disturbances.
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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Pure vertical or plunging motion
• If the gust profile encountered by the airplane is sinusoidal, the response will consist of a transient phase
followed by a steady-state sinusoidal oscillation. The steady-state response to a sinusoidal gust can be written as

where

• The steady state response of the airplane will have the following characteristics:
1. The same frequency as the gust wave
2. The amplitude of the response will be

3. The phase angle of the response is Φ; the phase angle of the input gust is zero. The response of the
airplane lags the gust wave by the angle Φ.

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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Pure vertical or plunging motion

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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Atmospheric turbulence
The atmosphere is in a continuous state of motion. The winds
and wind gusts created by the movement of atmospheric air
masses can degrade the performance and flying qualities of an
airplane.
The atmospheric gusts impose structural loads that must be
accounted for in the structural design of an airplane. The
movement of atmospheric air masses is driven by solar heating,
the Earth's rotation and various chemical, thermodynamic, and
electromagnetic processes.
The velocity field within the atmosphere varies in both space
and time m a random manner. This random velocity field is
called atmospheric turbulence. The velocity variations in a
turbulent flow can be decomposed into a mean and a fluctuating
part.

Atmospheric turbulence profile.

The size or scale of the fluctuations vary from small wavelengths, of the order of centimeters, to
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wavelengths of the order of kilometers. Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
Lateral flying qualities

Spiral mode flying qualities

Dutch roll mode flying qualities

Roll mode flying qualities

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Nelson, R. C. (1998). Flight stability and automatic control (Vol. 2). New York: WCB/McGraw Hill.
End

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