REAL TIME HELICOPTER BLADE ELEMENT TAIL ROTOR AND INTERFERENCE MODELS

SINGLE ROTOR HELICOPTERS HAVE OFTEN ENCOUNTERED AN UNANTICIPATED RIGHT YAW (URY). THIS OCCURS PREDOMINANTLY AT LOW SPEED IN GROUND EFFECT WITH THE RELATIVE WIND FROM THE LEFT OR REAR. THIS APPEARS TO BE CAUSED BY AERODYNAMIC INTERFERENCE PHENOMENA THAT CAN ONLY BE ANALYTICALLY MODELED BY A FREE VORTEX WAKE MODEL WITH GROUND EFFECT. ART HAS DEVELOPED SUCH A MODEL AND WILL INCORPORATE IT IN FLIGHTLAB, A SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT DEVELOPED BY ART FOR SIMULATION PROTOTYPING AND PARALLEL PROCESSING. A FLIGHTLAB BASED ROTORCRAFT SIMULATION WITH BLADE ELEMENT AND TAIL ROTORS WILL THEN BE COUPLED TO THIS VORTEX WAKE MODELAND THE RESULTS WILL BE VALIDATED AGAINST WIND TUNNEL DATA FOR VARIOUS WIND DIRECTIONS AND VELOCITIES. ONCE VALIDATED, THE MODEL WILL BE IMPLEMENTED IN REAL TIME USING PARALLEL PROCESSING. A FINITE STATE DYNAMIC INFLOW REPRESENTATION OF THE VORTEX WAKE MODEL WILL BE USED INTHE REAL TIME IMPLEMENTATION TO REDUCE COMPUTATION. PILOTED EVALUATIONS WILL BE CONDUCTED ON A SIMULATOR OF THE NAVY-S CHOICE, DRIVEN BYA FLIGHTLAB SYSTEM. THE RESULTING SIMULATION CAN BE USED TO IMPROVEDESIGNS AND PILOTING TECHNIQUES TO MINIMIZE THE URY PROBLEM. SOURCECODE GENERATED BY FLIGHTLAB CAN BE USED TO PORT THE M FIELDED TRAINERS FOR ENHANCED TRAINING SUPPORT.