Aerospace Research Lab

Point of contact: Dr. Marco P. Schoen

The Aerospace Research Laboratory at the MCERC facilitates projects dealing with control topics found in Aeronautics and Astronautics. In particular propulsion of civil aircrafts, navigation of manned and unmanned vehicles (air and space), as well as space structure vibration control and attitude control. Some of the current research projects are:

• Active Flow Control of Jet Engines:
  • Development of mathematical models describing the flow within the blade passage near the tip of the axial compressor portion.
  • Development of system identification algorithms using Nuclear Norm SI, minimum realization theory, input design, and intelligent based estimation theory.
  • Development of active control theory based on air injection to the tip of the blade section of the axial compressor of the jet engine.
• Intelligent Systems: Development of natured inspired optimization algorithms for application in parameter estimation and system identification problems. Hybridization of Genetic Algorithms (GA) and Tabu Search (TS), as well as with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithms.
• Large Flexible Space Structure: Vibration and Robust Control: Development of identification and robust adaptive controller algorithms for large dimensional systems exhibiting small amount of damping.
• Electro Active Ionic Polymers for Adaptive Space Optics: Development of mathematical models characterizing EAP materials dynamic behavior under changing environmental conditions.
• Wave Energy Converter: Development of predictive filters and intelligent based controllers for ocean wave energy converters.

Collaborations with: current and past collaborators of the aforementioned projects are: NASA Langley; Norwegian Technical University at Trondheim, Norway; Chinese Academy of Science – Institute of Engineering Thermophysics