Multi-body dynamic modelling and roll control of asymmetric variable sweep morphing aircrafts

This paper builds a multi-body dynamic model of an asymmetric variable sweep morphing aircraft and explores the idea of aircraft roll control by using asymmetric wing sweep angle change. This morphing aircraft is treated as a multi-body system because the large motion of wing segments makes the rigid-body approximation inadequate. Kane's method is used to handle the multi-body system modelling problem. The achieved model is capable of describing the dynamic and kinematic characteristics during wing morphing process. In order to show that an asymmetric wing sweep configuration would provide a roll moment arising from the lift differential between two wings, we decouple the aircraft roll motion equations from this model by neglecting the coupling effects of pitch and yaw motions. A steady roll control by asymmetric morphing is presented then. The control law is designed by employing Back-stepping method, which ensures exponentially asymptotically stability and provides robustness.