Status and Perspectives of Commercial Aircraft Morphing

Abstract

In a previous paper, the authors dealt with the current showstoppers that inhibit commercial applicability of morphing systems. In this work, the authors express a critical vision of the current status of the proposed architectures and the needs that should be accomplished to make them viable for installation onboard of commercial aircraft. The distinction is essential because military and civil issues and necessities are very different, and both the solutions and difficulties to be overcome are widely diverse. Yet, still remaining in the civil segment, there can be other differences, depending on the size of the aircraft, from large jets to commuters or general aviation, which are classifiable in tourism, acrobatic, ultralight, and so on, each with their own peculiarities. Therefore, the paper aims to trace a common technology denominator, if possible, and envisage a future perspective of actual applications.

Keywords

• morphing wings
• adaptive structures
• control systems
• embedded kinematics
• distributed actuator and sensor networks