Flight control

Smart Airfoil, a Collaborative Highly Interdisciplinary Research Project (CHIRP) at ETH:

This interdisciplinary research project focuses on assessing the potential of wing morphing in improving the characteristics of airplanes. Conventional rigid-wing airplane designs are the result of a tradeoff between different requirements arising from diverse operating points within their typical mission. Morphing wings have the potential of adapting to different flight conditions in an optimal way (e.g. minimal drag at each operating point). The research carried out at the Automatic Control Lab as part of this project consists of parameter identification from free flight data, closed-loop control of Macro Fiber Piezo actuators, attitude stabilization for a flying wing and aims at showcasing closed-loop control of the span-wise lift-distribution on a 3m-span flying wing prototype with smart actuators integrated in a selectively compliant lifting surface.