Active Control of Origami Inspired Camber Morphing Airfoil for Gust Load Alleviation

An origami design pattern is integrated to an active control system through camber morphing for vibration suppression and gust load alleviation in a typical wing section. Origami design parameters are optimized to have high sensitivity in chordwise fold angle and a maximum camber of 10% chord. A LQR controller is used to achieve the desired vibration suppression in a lightly damped aeroelastic system. The desired vibration suppression is achieved with change in camber of below 5% chord for an initial displacement condition induced vibration and less than 1% chord for gust excited vibration. Results also show that camber morphing is effective in suppressing vibration in both pitch and plunge degrees of freedom simultaneously.