Morphing Aircraft using Fluidic Artificial Muscles

摘要

Morphing aircraft are vehicles that can reconfigure themselves to optimize their flight performance for various and substantially different mission objectives. Research and simulation studies have shown the wide variety of performance benefits afforded by morphing technologies, but there have historically been barriers preventing the fabrication and testing of such vehicles. One of these barriers is a properly scaled actuation system. This work considers an actuation technology aimed at overcoming many of the limitations experienced with more conventional actuation concepts for the broad-scale dimensional changes of morphing aircraft. In particular, the present design focuses on employing fluidic artificial muscles (FAMs) to drive a substructure mechanism that simulates a large (100%) area change in a morphing skin. Results of the prototype demonstration show that FAMs are capable of generating significant morphing or control authority.