Aircraft control via variable cant-angle winglets

This paper investigates a novel method for the control of ‘morphing’ aircraft. The concept consists of a pair of winglets with adjustable cant angle, independently actuated and mounted at the tips of a baseline flying wing. The general philosophy behind the concept was that for specific flight conditions such as a coordinated turn, use of two control devices would be sufficient for adequate control. Computations with a vortex lattice model and subsequent wind tunnel tests demonstrate the viability of the concept, with individual and/or dual winglet deflection producing multi-axis coupled control moments. Comparisons between the experimental and computational results showed reasonable to good agreement, with the major discrepancies thought to be due to wind-tunnel model aeroelastic effects.