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In March of 2010

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NASA Dryden Flight Research Center

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began flying its latest flight research platform,

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the F-18 Full-scale Advanced Systems Testbed vehicle

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or F-18 FAST.

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The concept was initially developed with the F-18

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High-Angle of Attack Research Vehicle or HARV.

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For the HARV project, a new research flight control

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system computer was added to a standard F-18 system.

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This research system allowed for quick development of

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experimental control laws,

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while maintaining the production system

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as a safe fallback.  By limiting the robust F-18

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fighter to a restricted slow-speed flight envelope

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special safety could be maintained.

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The original HARV research system was limited in compute

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power and memory.  The Advanced Aeroelastic Wing,

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AAW project, upgraded the research processor.  The AAW

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project investigated the use of "wing warping"

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to achieve roaring performance

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with a lighter-weight wing structure.

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The AAW program added a significant amount of loads and

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wing deflection instrumentation to the vehicle.

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The same AAW aircraft was once again upgraded for the

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FAST project.  A second research computer dubbed the

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Airborne Research Test System IV, or ARTS IV was added.

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The ARTS system allowed for direct autocoding

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of control law algorithms from an analysis

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friendly computer environment.

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This makes it much easier to analyze and modify

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experimental control laws.  In addition to

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advanced controls research, the FAST system

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allows for simulating system failures.

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These simulated failures present challenging

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problems for the advanced systems which are

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required to restore normal flying characteristics

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and allow for a safe landing.

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One's moving, the other one's not

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One example might be

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a frozen control surface.  In this case the

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right stabilator was disabled, which results in an

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unpredictable cross-coupled behavior.

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Because pitch-control authority is significantly

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reduced by the failure, you can see the altitude

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loss that occurs during a roll maneuver.

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In the extreme case, all primary aerodynamic

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surfaces can be disabled and "propulsion only"

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control can be investigated...Up...In this case,

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the speed brake was deployed for additional control.

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Without the other aerodynamic surfaces an oscillation

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and disengagement occurred, but with an advanced

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controller good flying characteristics

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can be achieved  using only engine propulsion.

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That was a good one.

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The FAST vehicle paves the way for many important flight

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research experiments.  This system will be used to

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investigate integrated active control with

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structural feedback and constraints.

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The work will help to enable a class of futuristic

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lightweight vehicles that are not possible today.

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Using the F-18 FAST vehicle, NASA Dryden

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Flight Research Center is continuing to push

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scientific advancement through flight