Task: Developing Performant Controls for Piezoelectric Flaps
The noise produced by helicopters, particularly as they come into land, is far from pleasant, and their vibrations also affect the pilot. Noise and vibration are caused by the air currents in the plane of the rotors. Noise is generated when one rotor blade collides with the vortex trail of the rotor blade in front. One way to reduce the noise emissions and the overall vibrations of a helicopter is to use additional, piezoelectrically controlled flaps in the rotor blades.
Challenge: Prototyping with Multiple Interfaces and High Processing Power
However, multiple piezoelectric actuators are used per rotor blade. These actuators control the flaps’ angle of attack, based on the noise measurement. Therefore, the small prototyping setup requires high processing power and sufficient interfaces to allow the integration of sensors, microphones, and piezo actuators at the desired level.
A SCALEXIO AutoBox with a processor board and an FPGA board is the optimal prototyping system for noise reduction and vibration reduction applications. It provides the required number of input channels for the control algorithm covering pressure sensors in the rotor blades and additional microphones on the landing skid. Synchronous preprocessing of multiple channels can be conducted on the FPGA board without any impact on the processor board. Because the prototyping system has a modular setup, it can be flexibly scaled if more microphone channels or more piezo actuators are needed. Model-based development of the control strategy is not only possible on the processor board but also on the FPGA board if very short response times are required.
