Flutter suppression control law design and testing for the active flexible wing

Design of a control law for simultaneously suppressing the symmetric and antisymmetric flutter modes of a sting-mounted, fixed-in-roll aeroelastic wind-tunnel model is described. The flutter suppression control law was designed using linear quadratic Gaussian theory, and involved control law order reduction, a gain root-locus study, and use of previous experimental results. A 23% increase in the open-loop flutter dynamic pressure was demonstrated during the wind-tunnel test. Rapid roll maneuvers at 11% above the symmetric flutter boundary were also performed when the model was in a free-to-roll configuration.