Design and Testing of Drag Minimization and Maneuver Load Alleviation Control Laws for the IAWTM Wind Tunnel Test

This paper presents the design and experimental testing of drag minimization and maneuver load alleviation (MLA) controllers for high aspect ratio wing wind tunnel model. The controllers are developed for the Integrated Adaptive Wing Technology Maturation (IAWTM) wind tunnel
tests at Langley Research Center Transonic Dynamics Tunnel. The IAWTM wind tunnel tests are a joint effort between NASA and Boeing to mature technologies associated with flexible high aspect ratio transport aircraft wings. Two drag minimization controllers are developed, including a peak-seeking control law that performs model-free optimization to minimize drag. A second drag minimization controller is developed that performs a real-time model identification and optimizes the control surface profile to minimize drag. Similarly, two MLA controllers are developed, including a feedforward MLA design that is designed to utilize distributed control surfaces to shift the load inboard to minimize wing root bending moment. The second MLA controller utilizes an onboard surrogate model to provide optimal control surface and angle of attack commands to minimize wing root bending moment. The design and experimental results for the wind tunnel testing of the drag minimization and MLA controllers are summarized.