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Active rotor control for helicopters: individual blade control and swashplateless rotor designs

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Abstract

Modern helicopters still suffer from many problems that hinder a further increase in their efficiency, acceptance and hence their market share. The high level of vibrations and the noise generated by the rotor are the most important reasons for this. Vibrations are problematic not only for pilot and passenger comfort, but also give rise to an increase in maintenance effort. The high noise level limits the acceptance of helicopters in the public, e.g. landing of helicopters on or close to hospitals during Emergency Medical Services missions. High noise levels also lead to an early aural detection during military missions. Further drawbacks of helicopters are the high fuel consumption in high-speed forward flight and hence low range, limited speed of flight, etc. To overcome these drawbacks, active rotor control technologies have been investigated for a long time. Many different approaches have been investigated and most of them are not being followed any more. First investigations started with so-called Higher Harmonic Control (HHC) which has been replaced by Individual Blade Control (IBC). In a previous paper motivation on active rotor control technology was recapitulated as well as achievements on HHC. This paper continues that work and gives a survey on IBC concepts and achievements. An outlook on the idea of the swashplateless helicopter concludes the paper.

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Notes

  1. Partners were NASA, US Army, ZF Luftfahrttechnik (ZFL), DLR and Eurocopter Germany.

  2. Partners were Eurocopter, ZFL, DLR and the Technical University of Braunschweig.

  3. Partners were NASA, US Army, Sikorsky and ZFL.

  4. A NACA 0012 airfoil was used instead of the original NACA 23012.

  5. Please note: the phase definition differs from Eq. (1). The phase is defined as the rotor azimuth where the HHC blade pitch or the trailing edge flap deflections have their first minimum.

  6. Partners were Boeing, NASA, US Army, DARPA, MIT, UCLA and Univ. of Maryland.

  7. Contact: Dr. van der Wall, DLR, berend.vanderwall@dlr.de.

  8. Partners were ZFL, Technical Universities Hamburg Harburg and Braunschweig, DLR.

Abbreviations

AHS:

American Helicopter Society

ARC:

Aeronautical Research Council

ERF:

European Rotorcraft Forum

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  1. DLR, Institute of Flight Systems, Lilienthalplatz 7, 38108, Braunschweig, Germany

    Ch. Kessler

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Kessler, C. Active rotor control for helicopters: individual blade control and swashplateless rotor designs. CEAS Aeronaut J 1, 23–54 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13272-011-0001-0

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