PI Controller Design and Aeroservoelastic Analysis of a Smart Fin Including Piezoelectric Actuator for Performance Improvement

Abstract

For a lighter aerial vehicle, an actuator made of smart material such as piezoelectric material can be used to operate a control surface. The piezoelectric material in the actuator can adjust the pitch angle of the control surface by being transformed due to voltage difference, and the control surface of such type is called the smart fin. In the present paper, starting from the fundamental structural analysis, the aeroelastic and aeroservoelastic stability, and structural response simulations of the smart fin control system are performed by integration of MSC.NASTRAN, ZAERO and MATLAB/Simulink. In the process, PI controller is designed to ensure the flight stability and to maintain the pitch angles of the smart fin under a specific flight conditions. And then, the complete closed-loop control system of the smart fin is constructed and analyzed in both ZAERO and MATLAB/Simulink. The controllers develop the flight and control performances by increasing the flutter boundary and decreasing settling time of the step responses of the smart fin.