Handling Qualities Evaluation of an Adaptive Disturbance Compensation System for Ship-Based Rotorcraft

Ship-based rotorcraft are often required to operate in turbulent, unsteady flow fields. The interaction of the rotor and rotor wake with the turbulent airwake can cause uncommanded aircraft motion and high pilot workload. This paper presents a simulation-based handling qualities assessment of a robust adaptive gust compensating control law for rotorcraft. The control law is designed to improve command tracking and disturbance rejection when operating in an airwake. Details of the simulation implementation and experimental setup are presented. Piloted simulation-based evaluations are performed by three active duty pilots. Handling quality ratings and pilot activity were analyzed. Results indicate the controller's ability to significantly reduce pilot input activity and improve handling qualities ratings by two points on average.