Active control of gust- and interference-induced vibration of tilt-rotor aircraft

An active control system to suppress the response of the blade bending modes of a tilt-rotor aircraft to axial gusts and wing/rotor interference is described. The use of blade-mounted accelerometers as sensors is shown to permit the measurement and control of tilt-rotor blade modal responses and their associated vibratory loads directly. The feedback of modal acceleration, in addition to modal rate and displacement, is demonstrated to provide a control phase lead, in comparison with feedback of modal rate and displacement only, which makes higher system gains achievable.