Morphing Aerospace Vehicles and Structures provides a highly timely presentation of the state-of-the-art, future directions and technical requirements of morphing aircraft. Divided into three sections it addresses morphing aircraft, bio-inspiration, and smart structures with specific focus on the flight control, aerodynamics, bio-mechanics, materials, and structures of these vehicles as well as power requirements and the use of advanced piezo materials and smart actuators. The tutorial approach adopted by the contributors, including underlying concepts and mathematical formulations, unifies the methodologies and tools required to provide practicing engineers and applied researchers with the insight to synthesize morphing air vehicles and morphing structures, as well as offering direction for future research.

John Valasek, Texas A&M University, USA
John Valasek is Associate Professor and Director of the Vehicle Systems & Control Laboratory within the Aerospace Engineering Department at Texas A&M University. He has been actively conducting flight mechanics and controls research of Manned and Unmanned Air Vehicles in both Industry and Academia for 25 years. He was previously a Flight Control Engineer for the Northrop Corporation, Aircraft Division. He has published over 100 peer reviewed articles, and is co-inventor on a patent for autonomous air refueling of unmanned air vehicles. His research is currently focused on bridging the gap between traditional computer science topics and aerospace engineering topics, encompassing machine learning and multi-agent systems, intelligent autonomous control, vision based navigation systems, fault tolerant adaptive control, and cockpit systems and displays.?He teaches courses in Atmospheric Flight Mechanics, Digital Flight Control Systems, Vehicle Management Systems, Cockpit Systems & Displays, and Aircraft Design.

List of Contributors	p. xiii
Foreword	p. xv
Series Preface	p. xvii
Acknowledgments	p. xix
Introduction	p. 1
Introduction	p. 1
The Early Years: Bio-Inspiration	p. 2
The Middle Years: Variable Geometry	p. 5
The Later Years: A Return to Bio-Inspiration	p. 9
Conclusion	p. 10
References	p. 10
Bio-Inspiration
Wing Morphing in Insects, Birds and Bats: Mechanism and Function	p. 13
Introduction	p. 13
Insects	p. 14
Wing Structure and Mechanism	p. 15
Gross Wing Morphing	p. 18
Birds	p. 25
Wing Structure and Mechanism	p. 25
Gross Wing Morphing	p. 28
Local Feather Deflections	p. 30
Bats	p. 32
Wing Structure and Mechanism	p. 33
Gross Wing Morphing	p. 35
Conclusion	p. 37
Acknowledgements	p. 37
References	p. 38
Bio-Inspiration of Morphing for Micro Air Vehicles	p. 41
Micro Air Vehicles	p. 41
MAV Design Concepts	p. 43
Technical Challenges for MAVs	p. 46
Flight Characteristics of MAVs and NAVs	p. 47
Bio-Inspired Morphing Concepts for MAVs	p. 48
Wing Planform	p. 50
Airfoil Shape	p. 50
Tail Modulation	p. 50
CG Shifting	p. 50
Flapping Modulation	p. 51
Outlook for Morphing at the MAV/NAV scale	p. 51
Future Challenges	p. 51
Conclusion	p. 53
References	p. 53
Control And Dynamics
Morphing Unmanned Air Vehicle Intelligent Shape and Flight Control	p. 57
Introduction	p. 57
A-RLC Architecture Functionality	p. 58
Learning Air Vehicle Shape Changes	p. 59
Overview of Reinforcement Learning	p. 59
Implementation of Shape Change Learning Agent	p. 62
Mathematical Modeling of Morphing Air Vehicle	p. 63
Aerodynamic Modeling	p. 63
Constitutive Equations	p. 64
Model Grid	p. 67
Dynamical Modeling	p. 68
Reference Trajectory	p. 71
Shape Memory Alloy Actuator Dynamics	p. 71
Control Effectors on Morphing Wing	p. 73
Morphing Control Law	p. 73
Structured Adaptive Model Inversion (SAMI) Control for Attitude Control	p. 73
Update Laws	p. 76
Stability Analysis	p. 77
Numerical Examples	p. 77
Purpose and Scope	p. 77
Example 1: Learning New Major Goals	p. 77
Example 2: Learning New Intermediate Goals	p. 80
Conclusions	p. 84
Acknowledgments	p. 84
References	p. 84
Modeling and Simulation of Morphing Wing Aircraft	p. 87
Introduction	p. 87
Gull-Wing Aircraft	p. 87
Modeling of Aerodynamics with Morphing	p. 88
Vortex-Lattice Aerodynamics for Morphing	p. 90
Calculation of Forces and Moments	p. 92
Effect of Gull-Wing Morphing on Aerodynamics	p. 92
Modeling of Flight Dynamics with Morphing	p. 93
Overview of Standard Approaches	p. 93
Extended Rigid-Body Dynamics	p. 97
Modeling of Morphing	p. 100
Actuator Moments and Power	p. 105
Open-Loop Maneuvers and Effects of Morphing	p. 109
Longitudinal Maneuvers	p. 109
Turn Maneuvers	p. 114
Control of Gull-Wing Aircraft using Morphing	p. 118
Power-Optimal Stability Augmentation System using Morphing	p. 119
Conclusion	p. 123
Appendix	p. 123
References	p. 124
Flight Dynamics Modeling of Avian-Inspired Aircraft	p. 127
Introduction	p. 127
Unique Characteristics of Flapping Flight	p. 129
Experimental Research Flight Platform	p. 129
Unsteady Aerodynamics	p. 130
Configuration-Dependent Mass Distribution	p. 131
Nonlinear Flight Motions	p. 131
Vehicle Equations of Motion	p. 134
Conventional Models for Aerospace Vehicles	p. 134
Multibody Model Configuration	p. 136
Kinematics	p. 138
Dynamics	p. 138
System Identification	p. 140
Coupled Actuator Models	p. 141
Tail Aerodynamics	p. 143
Wing Aerodynamics	p. 143
Simulation and Feedback Control	p. 144
Conclusion	p. 148
References	p. 148
Flight Dynamics of Morphing Aircraft with Time-Varying Inertias	p. 151
Introduction	p. 151
Aircraft	p. 152
Design	p. 152
Modeling	p. 154
Equations of Motion	p. 156
Body-Axis States	p. 156
Influence of Time-Varying Inertias	p. 157
Nonlinear Equations for Moment	p. 157
Linearized Equations for Moment	p. 159
Flight Dynamics	p. 161
Time-Varying Poles	p. 162
Definition	p. 162
Discussion	p. 164
Modal Interpretation	p. 164
Flight Dynamics with Time-Varying Morphing	p. 166
Morphing	p. 166
Model	p. 166
Poles	p. 168
Modal Interpretation	p. 171
References	p. 174
Optimal Trajectory Control of Morphing Aircraft in Perching Maneuvers	p. 177
Introduction	p. 177
Aircraft Description	p. 179
Vehicle Equations of Motion	p. 181
Aerodynamics	p. 185
Trajectory Optimization for Perching	p. 191
Optimization Results	p. 196
Conclusions	p. 202
References	p. 202
Smart Materials And Structures
Morphing Smart Material Actuator Control Using Reinforcement Learning	p. 207
Introduction to Smart Materials	p. 207
Piezoelectrics	p. 208
Shape Memory Alloys	p. 208
Challenges in Controlling Shape Memory Alloys	p. 209
Introduction to Reinforcement Learning	p. 210
The Reinforcement Learning Problem	p. 210
Temporal-Difference Methods	p. 211
Action Selection	p. 213
Function Approximation	p. 215
Smart Material Control as a Reinforcement Learning Problem	p. 218
State-Spaces and Action-Spaces for Smart Material Actuators	p. 218
Function Approximation Selection	p. 220
Exploiting Action-Value Function for Control	p. 220
Example	p. 221
Simulation	p. 222
Experimentation	p. 225
Conclusion	p. 228
References	p. 229
Incorporation of Shape Memory Alloy Actuators into Morphing Aerostructures	p. 231
Introduction to Shape Memory Alloys	p. 231
Underlying Mechanisms	p. 232
Unique Engineering Effects	p. 233
Alternate Shape Memory Alloy Options	p. 237
Aerospace Applications of SMAs	p. 238
Fixed-Wing Aircraft	p. 239
Rotorcraft	p. 245
Spacecraft	p. 246
Characterization of SMA Actuators and Analysis of Actuator Systems	p. 247
Experimental Techniques and Considerations	p. 248
Established Analysis Tools	p. 252
Conclusion	p. 256
References	p. 256
Hierarchical Control and Planning for Advanced Morphing Systems	p. 261
Introduction	p. 261
Hierarchical Control Philosophy	p. 262
Morphing Dynamics and Performance Maps	p. 264
Discretization of Performance Maps via Graphs	p. 265
Planning on Morphing Graphs	p. 270
Application to Advanced Morphing Structures	p. 271
Morphing Graph Construction	p. 273
Introduction to the KagomÃ© Truss	p. 275
Examples of Morphing with the KagomÃ© Truss	p. 277
Conclusion	p. 279
References	p. 279
A Collective Assessment	p. 281
Looking Around: State-of-the-Art	p. 281
Bio-Inspiration	p. 281
Aerodynamics	p. 281
Structures	p. 282
Automatic Control	p. 282
Looking Ahead: The Way Forward	p. 282
Materials	p. 282
Propulsion	p. 283
Conclusion	p. 283
Index	p. 285
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