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M. Kozek, A. Schirrer (ed.):
"Modeling and Control for a Blended Wing Body Aircraft - A Case Study";
Springer-Verlag, Cham, 2015, ISBN: 978-3-319-10791-2; 302 pages.

This book is based on the outcome of the European Commission (EC)-funded research project "Active Control of a Flexible 2020 Aircraft" (ACFA 2020), which was conducted from 2008 to 2011. It succeeded the EC-funded research projects "Very Efficient Large Aircraft" (VELA) and "New Aircraft Concepts Research" (NACRE), which investigated concepts for a large blended wing body (BWB) commercial aircraft. The ACFA 2020 project worked out multi-objective control concepts as well as an ultra-efficient BWB predesign aircraft model for 450 passengers.
This book collects several major results from the ACFA 2020 project covering key developments in structural and dynamic modeling as well as multi-variable, multi-objective control design methods. The scope of the book covers the conceptual design as well as the modeling process to obtain a numerical simulation model and model reduction methods to obtain the basis for controller design. The second part is dedicated to control design, covering various advanced feedback and feed-forward design methods to address the multitude of arising control goals: stabilization, load alleviation, flight dynamics, and comfort. The last part comprises validation results of the proposed control concepts, especially the achieved loads alleviation and comfort aspects, and a discussion of further work and open issues. The purpose of this book is two-fold: (i) promote the results obtained in the research project, illustrated at the considered BWB aircraft pre-design model and (ii) present the methods for modeling, control design, and optimization that have been developed. We believe that this book is a valuable source of information to both scientists and engineers active in the aerospace and control communities. It contains specific information about the problems and solutions found in the pre-design of a BWB concept and also demonstrates advanced control design methods on a complex application example.
The ACFA 2020 project answered several fundamental questions, such as the general load alleviation potential, but it was out of scope to produce a complete BWB control architecture or to conduct in-depth optimization of actuators. Therefore, several open issues remained and are addressed in the discussion and outlook.
We are grateful for the dedication, enthusiasm, and continuing support of the ACFA 2020 consortium and the involved individual work groups. Rudolf Maier and Andreas Wildschek from Airbus Group Innovations (formerly EADS Innovation Works) have initiated and led the research project in a cooperative and stimulating way. The members of the project´s Scientific Advisory Group contributed invaluable inputs during the project´s progress: Gary Balas (University of Minnesota, USA), Dagfinn Gangsaas (Aerospace Control Dynamics LLC, USA), Mark Lowenberg (University of Bristol, UK), and Ilkay Yavrucuk (Middle East Technical University, Turkey). We thank our Scientific Officer at the European Commission, Pablo Perez-Illana, for his understanding of a research project´s needs and support during the project. Finally, our personal thanks go to Springer Verlag, where Oliver Jackson and Charlotte Cross proved to be our reliable signposts for guiding us through the long process of publication.
The results presented in this book have been developed within the ACFA 2020 research project. This project has been financially supported by the European Union Framework Programme 7 under the FP7 project number 213321. Many thanks also go to the NACRE consortium, especially to ONERA, DLR, and the NACRE-task 2.2 team, for providing aerodynamic and structure data of a large BWB aircraft configuration which strongly supported the development of methods and tools early in the ACFA 2020 project.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10792-9