Adaptive Control of 2D In-Ground-Effect Flight with Distributed Pressure Sensing

Although beneficial in terms of fuel efficiency and stealth, in-ground-effect (IGE) flight presents significant challenges to flight control. To address the challenges of unsteady aerodynamics arising from varied sea states, this paper applies predictive cost adaptive control (PCAC) to flight control. Unlike traditional flight-control methods, which depend on dynamic inversion, linearization, loop shaping, and gain scheduling, PCAC uses no prior data or model. In particular, PCAC is an indirect adaptive control extension of model predictive control that uses recursive least squares with variable-rate forgetting for online, closed-loop system identification. For 2D IGE flight of an airfoil over a wave surface, PCAC uses active flow control with jet actuation and distributed pressure sensing to suppress the effect of unsteady aerodynamics without the need for a prior control-oriented model.