Rotorcraft vibration control: adaptive vs LPV methods

This paper proposes a parameter-varying approach for the vibration control problem in rotorcraft applications. The proposed algorithm can be considered as a variant of Harmonic Control (HC), and can be placed beside existing adaptive versions used in the context of active controls design. In particular the novel approach accounts for the variation of the vibratory response of the rotorcraft structure (such as due to, e.g., varying flight condition and actuator nonlinearities) directly in the synthesis of the control law. As a result, a robust parameter-varying controller, based on a discrete-time linear parameter varying model of the system, is obtained. Advantages and considerations on the effectiveness of the proposed approach are discussed by numerical examples, in comparison to other strategies well established in the literature.