Exploring strategies for closed-loop cavity flow control

One of the current three main thrust areas of the Collaborative Center of Control Science (CCCS) at The Ohio State University is feedback control of aerodynamic flows. Synergistic capabilities of the flow control team include all of the required multidisciplinary areas of flow simulations, low-dimensional and reduced-order modeling, controller design and experimental integration and implementation of the components along with actuators and sensors. The initial application chosen for study is closed-loop control of shallow subsonic cavity flows. We have made significant progress in the development of various components necessary for reduced-order model based control strategy, which will be presented and discussed in this paper. Stochastic estimation was used to show that surface pressure measurements along with the reduced-order model based on flow-field variables can be used for closed-loop control. Linear controllers such as H ^∞. Smith predictor, and PID were implemented experimentally with various degrees of success. The results showed limitations of linear controllers for cavity flow with inherent nonlinear dynamics. Detailed experimental work further explored the physics and showed the highly non-linear nature of the cavity flow and the effects of forcing on the flow structure.