A Unified Control and Simulation Tool in Support of Rotorcraft/Ship Dynamic Interface

This research was aimed at developing a unified rotorcraft flight control system design and simulation tool that can account for the effects of both the ship motion and the ship airwake. The development integrated the various aspects of the shipboard simulation and analysis to provide a unified sea-based rotorcraft flight control design and evaluation environment. The unified design and simulation tool addresses four important aspects in support of shipboard rotorcraft dynamic interface. This includes 1) developing advanced rotorcraft flight control system algorithms to account for the effects of the shipboard operating environment, (2) developing a shipboard rotorcraft simulation environment to facilitate accurate plant and disturbance model generation and control design evaluation in support of advanced flight control model development, (3) prototyping a control toolkit that can be used with user customized modeling and simulation environments, and (4) integrating the control toolkit into a comprehensive rotorcraft modeling and simulation program to unify the control and simulation functionality in support of rotorcraft/ship dynamic interface control and analysis. The unified tool was tested for design of shipboard disturbance rejection control options on three example rotorcraft covering two conventional single main rotor helicopters and one tiltrotor aircraft. The evaluation results demonstrate that advanced control options can be developed to effectively enhance shipboard rotorcraft controls with significantly reduced pilot workload.