Advanced Actuation and Control for a High Frequency Motion Simulator

Research to extend current operation of high frequency flight motion simulators (FMS) is proposed. Advanced control algorithms for simultaneous collaborative control of conventional FMS will be developed, and new solid state drives for servo hydraulicvalves will be created. A high bandwidth FMS currently in development will meet many of the requirements for hardware-in-the-loop testing. The proposed research will explore technologies to increase test system effectiveness after integration withconventional low frequency FMS, and will further improve high frequency FMS capability by extending actuator performance. New control algorithms - independent, fully integrated, and intermediate - will be developed using models of high and low frequencysystems. At least one algorithm will be implemented on an existing hardware testbed. The development of advanced actuators will make use of new smart materials such as piezoelectrics and magnetostrictives to control directly key servovalve components.Analytical models of the actuator and servovalve will be developed and a portion of the new design will be prototyped and tested against conventional valves. The research will continue in Phase II with implementation of the advanced control algorithms ona combined low/high frequency FMS and possible replacement of existing actuators with devices based on the new servovalve.