Linearized High-Fidelity Aeromechanics for Extended Reality Simulation and Control of Shipboard Inte
Abstract
In August 2017 an MV-22B Osprey crashed into the ship-deck of USS Green Bay off the coast of Queensland, Australia, killing three an,d injuring twenty-three. A similar occurrence in December 2015 saw a near-miss in which an Osprey landed short of the deck of an amp,hibious transport ship, and hung halfway off the back of the ship. Subsequent investigations attributed the cause of both mishaps to, heavy rotor downwash which, in its interactions with the ship deck, ship hull, and water surface, recirculated into the rotor causi,ng increased power demands and adverse effects on the handling qualities, ultimately leading to a tragic end. As such, modeling of t,he rotor downwash and its interactions with the sea surface, ship deck, and ship supestructures is key in understanding the adverse,effect on the flight dynamics and performance of rotorcraft in shipboard operations. Moreover, the ability to replicate these intera,ctions in real-time flight simulations could help supplement the creation of Launch and Recovery Envelopes(LREs) aboard naval vessel,s. In fact, this virtual approach to LRE certification could be used to replace potentially unsafe live simulations during a Dynamic, Interface (DI) period. Additionally, flight control laws designed to compensate for the adverse effect of shipboard interactions co,uld lead to increased safety and to enabling fully-autonomous launch and recovery in critical shipboard operations. The proposed inv,estigation offers a novel approach to the modeling and simulation of ship-board interactions in that it relies on a state-variable r,epresentation of high-fidelity aeromechanic models, such that the coupled rigid-body, rotor, and rotor wake dynamics, including the,wake interactions with the ship deck and ship supersturctures, can be expressed as a set of ordinary differential equations. This dy,namic systems approach holds a number of advantages: (i) state-space models can be linearized to explain the coupled rotorcraft and,wake dynamic stability in shipboard interactions (ii) model-order reduction methods can be leveraged to yield simulations faster, po,ssibly massively faster, than real-time while maintaining a fidelity similar to that of Euler-based CFD methods (iii) can be used to,ward the development of advanced flight control laws and cueing methods to compensate for adverse shipboard interactions. To supplem,ent this modeling effort, Extended Reality (XR) simulations which make use of Virtual Reality (VR) and full-body haptics will be inv,estigated to increase the fidelity and immersion of simulations, and to demonstrate novel flight control laws and cueing methods. As, such, the objective of the proposed investigation is three-fold: (i) development of methodologies based on dynamic systems theory t,o explain, predict, and replicate complex shipboard interactions in real-time (ii) development of simulation and advanced cueing met,hods to increase the fidelity and immersion of shipboard approach and landing simulations, and (iii) synthesis advanced flight contr,ol laws and novel cueing methods to help control complex shipboard interactions. These objectives were carefully outlined through in,teractions with the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) and the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School (USNTPS) to offer novel solutions in tho,se areas that require advancement in the state of the art while complementing ongoing ONR-sponsored research efforts such as the Dyn,amic Interface Virtual Environment (DIVE) program and the flight test campaign led by Dr. John Tritschler at USNTPS to evaluate perf,ormance of helicopters near obstacles.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2022
- Source ID
- N000142212342
Entities
People
- Umberto Saetti
Organizations
- Auburn University
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy