As material and manufacturing technologies progress, possible aircraft geometries and improved control surface techniques increase. One such improvement is the morphing-wing aircraft capable of continuous variable control surface deflection along the span of the wing. With the morphing wing replacing traditional ailerons and flaps, control methodologies capable of utilizing this new technology are implemented to minimize drag during level flight and rolling motion. Two different control methodologies are presented: an analytic approach based on lifting-line theory and a numeric approach capable of incorporating viscous effects and the influence of multiple lifting surfaces. While these methodologies are applied to an example morphing aircraft here, they can be applied to other aircraft as well. These methodologies are orders of magnitude faster than using a computational fluid dynamics methodology to determine roll control of a morphing aircraft.
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