Flying Qualities Constraints in the Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of a Supersonic Tailless Long Range Aircraft

The increased complexity of next generation aircraft has popularized Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) as an aircraft design tool. However, MDO efforts consistently neglect aircraft stability and control analyses beyond simple static assessments. Not only does this limit the potential of the MDO to identify an optimal design, but it also fails to assess the MIL-STD or FAR handling qualities requirements the aircraft must achieve. In an effort to bring aircraft handling qualities and dynamic performance into the MDO of a tailless supersonic aircraft, a dynamic stability assessment tool is under development with the goal of automating the feedback control system design to facilitate optimization of the aircraft control effector configuration. Convex optimization tools and a linear matrix inequality problem formulation make the problem computationally tractable for use in MDO. Model and framework development are presented here, along with the results of a demonstration/validation case on a more conventional subsonic transport aircraft. Future research efforts are also discussed, and focus on a covariance constrained control technique that is under development which utilizes a novel translation of modal parameter guidelines to state variance upper bounds for a given initial condition.