Validation of A Low-Order Model for Closed Loop Flow Control Enabled Flight

A simple low-order model is derived to determine the flow forces and moments on an airfoil that arbitrarily pitches and plunges with the presence of synthetic jet actuation for the use in an adaptive closed-loop control scheme. The low-order model captures the attached flow response of an airfoil in the presence of synthetic jet actuators near the trailing edge. The model includes two explicit non-linear states for fluid variables and can be easily coupled to the rigid body dynamics of the system. The model is validated with high fidelity numerical simulations and experiments. The low-order model agreement with experiments is good for low reduced frequency pitching. The agreement to numerical simulations is also good for reduced frequencies that are an order of magnitude higher than those attainable in experiments.