A Method for Quantitative Technology Analysis of Active Rotor Technologies

Future advances in rotorcraft capabilities depend heavily on their ability to adapt to the changes in their wide-ranging aerodynamic environments. One set of promising technologies proposed to address these issues are Active Rotor Technologies (ARTs). These technologies have the ability to reduce vibration and noise and, to some extent, improve performance. While some ARTs are moving into full scale demonstrations, an adoption of the technologies onto a fleet has not yet occurred. This is likely caused by a lack of understanding of both the positive and negative impacts these technologies would bring to the operations of the vehicle. This paper outlines a method by which ARTs are analyzed in a physics and process-based manner to understand their total cost to Full Spectrum Operations (FSO) and to support future decision making for these advanced technologies. This is accomplished through a framework called Quantitative Technology Analysis (QTA). It is shown that by considering each level of the problem decomposition and applying modeling and simulation, the FSO impact of ARTs can be characterized and used for decision making with QTA.