My Research
Flight Dynamics Modeling
I'm a developer of a big simulation code, called HeliUM. This code was originally developed by Professor Roberto Celi at the University of Maryland and his students, and I work on a continuation of it, constanty expanding capabilites and validation efforts. The code tries to predict helicopter "flight dynamics" behavior, or how the helicopter behaves as it maneuvers through the air. The models developed by the code are used for control law design and development. We can then predict Handling Qualities, or how well the pilot is able to control the aircraft and perform their mission.
A big portion of my research is comparing my simulation results to flight test data, and trying to understand what is missing from our simulation models, so we can improve them and be more predictive in our anaylses. This is particularly challenging for helicopters, which have many moving pieces that all contribute to the overall motion! Over the past few decades we have gotten pretty good at modeling traditional helicopters
My research tries to understand new types of configurations, there is a huge resurgence in the rotorcraft development thanks to "Urban Air Mobility", and the DoD has started several new rotorcraft initiatives. I worked with colleagues at Sikorksy a few years ago to compare models of the Sikorsky X2 Technology Demonstrator, a coaxial configuration. Since then, we have expanded the work to compare various rotor wake models, this is a current research thrust for me. I've been part of a great NATO team looking at various elements of helicopter modeling, and how to assess model fidelity.
Experimental Analysis of Small Rotor Systems
I just purchased a small 6-axis test-stand and hope to use it to extract, from wind-tunnel experiments, properties of small rotor systems. The goal is to simplify the analysis of small rotor systems, to enable and expedite the use of model-based design approaches for control law development.
More to come later, this work is just beginning in AY22.
UAS Modeling and Control
I use Ardupilot for system identification and control development of UAVs, or "drones". The goal is to use flight test data to develop a flight dynamics model of an aircraft directly. Here, we start with the truth data, the flight test, and develop a model. In some ways this is almost a backwards process the the one above where we go from math model and then compare to flight test. The challenge here is getting the parameters of the model correct!
In a recent conference, we identified a quadcopter model from flight test and did some control optimization on it.
