Design of a sub-scale model aircraft for airplane fault-tolerant control algorithm testing

A sub-scale model aircraft of A380 used to verify the fault-tolerant control algorithm has been designed in this work. The similitude requirements and scaling relationships mentioned in references have been strictly followed to design the scale-model aircraft. Since it is used to verify the fault-tolerant control algorithm, the aircraft has been designed to simulate some kinds of failures during flight and could record the flight data including the control signal as well the response using the flash of the microcontroller. This paper describes how the scale-model aircraft data can be used on the full-scale airplane and takes the vertical stabilizer as an example to introduce it in detail by using CFD and wind-tunnel testing.