Dynamic Modeling and Control for a Morphing Aircraft

Military and civil aviation are requiring higher performance for the aircrafts in recent years. The Morphing techniques can effectively improve aircraft's performance to meet the customer's multi-role requirement for the aircraft. The physical model of a variable-span and variable-sweep morphing aircraft is simplified. Based on the Kane's method, the morphing motions are assumed to be controllable known inputs, and the wings' movements are expressed by constraint equations. The six components of the translational velocity and the angular velocity of the morphing aircraft's body in the body-fixed frame are selected as the generalized speeds. Six degree-of-freedom dynamic model is built. The model can be used as a basis in the research and development of the flight control system for the morphing aircraft. Based on the steady-state assumption, the longitudinal dynamics is achieved. BQM-34 is chose as the research platform, and the aerodynamic coefficients of four different configurations are computed using the Missile Datcom software. The longitudinal dynamic model is linearized for loiter and dash configurations. Based on pole-placement, the controllers are designed for these two shapes. The configuration's transition process from loiter to dash is simulated while the control gains are linearly scheduled as a function of the morphing process.