A Modified SIMPLEX Method Based on Homotopy Continuation Principle and Application to Tiltrotor Airplane

A homotopy continuation principle based SIMPLEX method is developed and applied to trim algorithm for tiltrotor airplane. While SIMPLEX method has the demerit that the solution is local and sensitive to the initial value of iteration, the modified SIMPLEX can provide global solution without sensitiveness to the initial value. This method can also be used to find the group solutions of the equations that the number of variables is more than the number of the equations. Tiltrotor aircraft longitudinal model is given. The modified SIMPLEX method is used to compute the steady-state trim results of several flight conditions. The results show that the method is useful and efficient. The results also provide some necessary data for tiltrotor flight control system design.