Precision Autonomous Virtual Flight Control

A virtual flight simulation provides a cost effective tool for testing the aircraft systems and evaluating the controllability for new aircraft designs and upgrades of existing designs. Development of a virtual pilot that can address a range of rotorcraft maneuvers and which can be adapted to various aircraft configurations with a high degree of precision is a demanding task. Although there are techniques for developing virtual pilot models for various applications, most current methods require manual tuning of the virtual pilot for each helicopter configuration and for each maneuver in order to achieve an accurate execution of demanding maneuvers. Under this SBIR, ART proposes to develop a unified tool set that can accomplish the task effectively. The problem of accuracy, robustness, and efficiency of a virtual pilot will be addressed in order to provide the analyst with an efficient and integrated tool set. The aspect of tool usability or the user-friendliness will also be addressed through the development of a graphical user interface that will facilitate the use of the application. The innovation involved is the integration of the diverse technologies of rotorcraft modeling, control, and optimization into a unified tool that is efficient and effective in providing an accurate and repeatable control history to drive nonlinear rotorcraft models through user defined mission profiles.