A Morphing Wing used Shape Memory Alloy Actuators New Control Technique with Bi-positional and PI Laws Optimum Combination - Part 2: Experimental Validation

The paper represents the second part of a study related to the development of an actuators control system for a morphing wing application, and describes the experimental validation of the control designed in the first part. After a short presentation of the finally adopted control architecture, the physical implementation of the control is done. To implement the controller on the physical model two Programmable Switching Power Supplies AMREL SPS100-33 and a Quanser Q8 data acquisition card, were used. The inputs of the data acquisition were two signals from Linear Variable Differential Transformer potentiometers, indicating the positions of the actuators, and six signals from thermocouples installed on the SMA wires. The acquisition board outputs channels were used to control power supplies in order to obtain the desired skin deflections. The control validation was made in two experimental ways: bench test and wind tunnel test. All 35 optimized airfoil cases, used in the design phase, were converted into actuators vertical displacements which were used as inputs reference for the controller. In the wind tunnel tests a comparative study was realized around of the transition point position for the reference airfoil and for each optimized airfoil.