Study of PIO susceptibility in aircraft automatic control systems

• Grant number: 16/16808-5
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: February 01, 2017
• End date: July 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Aerospace Engineering - Flight Dynamics
• Principal Investigator: Jorge Henrique Bidinotto
• Grantee: Jorge Henrique Bidinotto
• Host Institution: Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Eduardo Morgado Belo

Abstract

The increasing of technology applied in control systems has enabled the aviation adopting increasingly the use of automatic control systems, which can mean a growing in development, safety and comfort in aircraft. However, it does not free the aviation from old problems as PIO (Pilot Induced Oscillation) already object of research in last few decades, but with studies applied to aircraft with conventional control. This project proposes the study of this phenomenon for improving the development of aircraft with Fly-by-Wire control, measuring aircraft susceptibility to this phenomenon, based on the value of its control derivatives, which are key factors for these systems design, avoiding the occurence of the phenomenon in these aircraft. To carry out the project, a moving test platform will be used where different categories of pilots will be exposed to synthetic longitudinal attitude capture tasks using a simulated artificial horizon. The repetition of these tasks with different control derivative values will show which values become the system most subject to PIO. To this conclusion some data statistical analyzes will be made and each pilot must classify each maneuver based on the PIO rating scale already used in the aircraft industry. Additionally, it is also expected to obtain a proposal for analysis the flight tests data involving PIO (still lacking in certification requirements), and a study of human factors in order to obtain the differences in dynamic response of several different pilot categories. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

BIDINOTTO, J. H.; MOURA, H. C.; MACEDO, J. P. C. A.. A survey of human pilot models for study of Pilot-Induced Oscillation (PIO) in longitudinal aircraft motion. AERONAUTICAL JOURNAL, SEP 2021. (16/16808-5)