A Pilot Model for Investigating Biodynamic Coupling

Future commercial supersonic transport designs will tend to be long and slender, driven by aerodynamic requirements of supersonic flight. The high fuselage slenderness ratio results in increasingly flexible structures with lower frequency modes. The resulting dynamic aeroservoelastic (DASE) accelerations have been shown to substantially degrade aircraft handling qualities in piloted simulation. This structurally exacerbated aeroelastic vibration involuntarily alters the pilot’s control inputs as the pilot is shaken in the cockpit. The sinusoidal nature of the DASE accelerations leads to coupling with the pilot’s intended control inputs, driving the aircraft via the unintended pilot inputs, in some cases leading to further structural accelerations – a process referred to as biodynamic coupling. When this involuntary, biomechanical feedthrough is passed in phase with the pilot’s intended control inputs, a divergent, coupled pilot-aircraft system can manifest itself. To reconstruct, analyze and better understand sensitivities of the bio-dynamic coupling phenomenon, a pilot model has been constructed and coupled with an existing aircraft simulation and motion simulator model. The pilot model simulates the lateral-directional component of this interaction during a lateral sidestep maneuver. The model attempts to split the pilot interaction into two separate components –the involuntary biodynamic feedthrough and cognitive commands. The final pilot model simulates piloted maneuvers and the resulting and simultaneous biodynamic feedthrough paired with an airplane rigid body and structural dynamics model and a model for the simulator’s motion base dynamics. The pilot model, and lessons learned about biodynamic coupling between the simulated control strategy and biodynamic feedthrough are presented.