See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/303543353

Model-Enhanced Analysis of Flight Data for Helicopter Flight Operations

Quality Assurance

Conference Paper · May 2016

CITATIONS READS

2 237

3 authors:

Alek Gavrilovski Kyle Collins

Georgia Institute of Technology Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
12 PUBLICATIONS   96 CITATIONS    16 PUBLICATIONS   81 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Dimitri N. Mavris
Georgia Institute of Technology
1,305 PUBLICATIONS   8,662 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Aerodynamic sizing of Ram Air Turbines View project

Data-driven Aviation Safety Enhancement using Machine Learning View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Alek Gavrilovski on 22 August 2018.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Model-Enhanced Analysis of Flight Data for Helicopter Flight Operations Quality
Assurance
Alek Gavrilovski Kyle B. Collins
Graduate Research Assistant Research Engineer II
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA, United States of America

Dimitri N. Mavris
S.P. Langley NIA Distinguished Regents Professor
Director of the Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory, ASDL
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA, United States of America
ABSTRACT
Helicopter Flight Operations Quality Assurance (HFOQA) systems promise safety improvements in flight operations
through the use of on-board data from regular flights. HFOQA systems can provide data pertaining to many types of
accidents where human factors have been implicated because they track the manner in which the vehicles are operated.
For helicopters, most implementations of such systems on helicopters rely on experts to determine pre-set limits on
combinations of flight parameters. These limits are also known as “safety events”. A common practical problem that
arises in HFOQA systems is the need to have sufficient knowledge of a condition before events can be defined and used
in a proactive manner. There has been recent interest in using alternative approaches to detecting faults and unsafe
events in aviation and to solve this inherent limitation of HFOQA. In this work, a model-based approach is taken in
an effort to extend the capabilities of traditional HFOQA analysis, particularly in terms of definition and detection
of monitored conditions. For localized conditions, the use of simple models in place of traditional safety events
is investigated and demonstrated. The detection based on the model evaluation shows a good correspondence to the
flight condition it was designed to capture, and at the same time incurring a minimal amount of additional computation.
The model-based boundaries typically account for changes in vehicle parameters and operating conditions, whereas
traditional safety events have to be modified through an iterative process. For a more general approach, a dynamic
model was considered. By evaluating the vehicle’s response to a set of control inputs spanning a range about the trim
state, it was possible to determine the boundaries of safe input. The inputs falling outside this boundary were also
evaluated for the risk associated with them based on the time required to reach a critical state. In both cases, the results
offer improvements over the current state-of-practice, and can be deployed in a data-monitoring system directly or
following intermediate post-processing steps.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
Increasing helicopter safety is an on-going concern and de-
spite recent successes, further efforts are needed to sustain the
improvements and continue the positive trend. Helicopters
have traditionally been associated with greater risks,especially
due to a high number of critical dynamic components whose
failure would likely result in an accident. In recent surveys
of rotorcraft accidents, the largest category of accidents was
found to be related to pilot actions and decision making, as
shown in Table 1. This fact makes Helicopter Flight Opera-
tions Quality Assurance(HFOQA) particularly useful in im-
proving rotorcraft safety. Several studies and reports of oper-
Presented at the AHS 72nd Annual Forum, West Palm Beach,
Florida, May 17–19, 2016. Copyright
c 2016 by the Ameri- Data Monitoring (HFDM) as well. The purpose of such a sys-
can Helicopter Society International, Inc. All rights reserved.
1
ational experiences have demonstrated the potential for safety
improvement through HFOQA, as well as some additional op-
erational,maintenance and regulatory benefits (Refs. 1–5) The
present work is concerned with the application of rotorcraft
simulation to enable improved detection and analysis capa-
bilities in HFOQA by analyzing critical scenarios in a virtual
environment. The result of the simulation studies are poten-
tial improvements in the conditions that can be tracked, earlier
detection and more straightforward development of condition
indicators (safety events) that comprise most of the analytic
capability in HFOQA.
HFOQA is known under many names, depending on the
purpose of the system and the local regulatory climate where
it is implemented. It is often referred to as Helicopter Flight
tem is to record and store flight data, and to enable post-flight

Table 1. Rate of crew-related accidents
number of % pilot
Source Years
accidents action
Iseler & De
1990-1996 756a 70
Maio6
Harris, Franklin 1963-1998
7618a 64
& Kasper7
EHEST8 2000-2005 311 70
2001-2002,
US JHSAT9 2006
523 84
a Number reflects single-engine helicopters
analysis that would identify potential unsafe trends. For flight
critical components, the industry has specified a rate of 10−9
failures per flight hour. Monitoring of flight critical compo-
nents using Health and Usage Monitoring Systems (HUMS)
has contributed to the low accident rate due to system fail-
ures (Ref. 10). In comparison, pilot-related accidents in ro-
torcraft operations occur at a rate of 10−5 to 10−6 per flight
hour (Ref. 11). For this reason, HFOQA systems can pro-
vide benefits by gathering meaningful information pertaining
to many types of accidents where human factors have been im-
plicated because they track the manner in which the vehicles
are operated. HFOQA systems promise safety improvements
in flight operations through the use of on-board data from reg-
ular flights.
Most implementations of such systems on helicopters rely
on expertise or prior experience to determine pre-set limits
on combinations of flight parameters. These limits are also
known as “safety events”. HFOQA operates primarily by
comparing these thresholds to incoming data, and alerting the
operator when a pre-defined level of a certain parameter is
breached. In the present state of practice, variability is in-
troduced due to the subjective margin of safety which is as-
sumed in each safety event definition. Another concern is
the tradeoff between false alerts and missed detection, which
operators address through periodic fine tuning of the safety
events which are tracked. Because of the subjectivity associ-
ated with such a process and the fact that some conditions are
simply too rare to accurately determine where the detection
level should be set, it is quite often the case that these systems
must go through many iterations before acceptable levels of
performance are achieved (Refs. 4, 12).
Two general directions of research for improving monitor-
ing systems are toward data-based and model-based methods
to extract additional knowledge from flight data, beyond the
traditional metrics.
Data-based methods encompass a rapidly expanding field
of machine learning, data mining, and other statistical tech-
niques which make use of the vast amount of data gath-
ered (Ref. 13). The ability to analyze a large set of flight
data records and extract anomalous or otherwise non-standard
events has seen much attention in recent years (Refs. 14–17),
with very positive results. In most cases, the application of
a data-driven algorithm requires some degree of familiarity
with problem-domain knowledge, which in the case of avia-
2
tion systems usually pertains to the kinematics, dynamics and
performance of the monitored vehicle or fleet. This creates
some overlap with the next type of improvement to monitor-
ing systems. Model-based approaches typically make use of
some characteristic of the monitored system which can be ac-
curately and adequately described using mathematical formu-
lations, which yield insights beyond what is already contained
in the data. Marzat (Ref. 18) makes a great case for the ben-
efits of model-based system monitoring, as well as provides
an extensive overview of different approaches for a variety of
aerospace systems.
Figure 1 shows an overall concept of the operation of a
HFOQA system. The vehicles generate data during regular
operations, which is typically analyzed for the presence of
safety events through the use of expert-defined thresholds (top
left of figure). In practice, these safety events are most often
combinations of values on a subset of the recorded parame-
ters, which limits the analysis only to the available parameters
and the pre-defined events. Models can be used alongside the
existing data to provide derived parameters which are much
more closely related to the hazard that is being monitored.
Other benefits include the possibility to derive additional pa-
rameters which are not contained in the available data set,
but may be related to the recorded data through some phys-
ical principles. For example, in civil aviation researchers have
considered the risk of runway overrun by combining the land-
ing point data with a braking model of the aircraft, which al-
lows for a comparison between the remaining runway length
and the braking ability of the plane (Ref. 19). In this con-
ceptual framework, the models can contribute through crew
feedback as well as direct implementation for the purpose of
detecting hazards in the flight data.
TECHNICAL APPROACH
Safety conditions of interest
In this work, we consider several conditions which have con-
tributed to many helicopter accidents, particularly loss of con-
trol accidents. Studies of helicopter accidents (Refs. 1,9) have
revealed the main categories of accidents to be related to the
pilot’s operation of the vehicle. The goal is to address the
more significant areas of concern first, and the measure of the
significance of an accident type has historically been the num-
ber of such occurrences over a period of time. As discussed
in (Ref. 20), the accident rate as a metric is not ideal but pro-
vides a direction for the focusing of development efforts on
more proactive metrics. The industry is in general agreement
about the types of safety concerns that helicopters are most
commonly exposed to, and these known hazards provide the
starting point for this investigation.
Of particular interest is the management of performance
during normal operation and during emergency procedures
such as autorotation, dynamic rollover, loss of trail rotor ef-
fectiveness and entry into the vortex ring state, among others.
These hazards are frequently discussed in rotorcraft literature,
such as the Helicopter Flying Handbook (Ref. 21). Below
 Expert based event Model based event definition discovery & detection
definition & detection
Simple physics based Reduced event models
model events from off-line simulation

Crew
Feedback

Flight Data Flight Data

Dynamic simulation event
control limit discovery
Crew
Feedback
Analysis Information Reporting Analysis Information
and review

Fig. 1. Concept of using physics-based models in HFOQA.

are brief summaries of the conditions considered in this work,
and for more details the reader is referred to the handbook and
similar literature.
The Vortex Ring State (VRS) is a well-known aerody-
namic condition that is encountered at moderate forward ve-
locities and descent rates that are roughly 0.5 to 1.5 times the
value of the hover induced velocity through the rotor disk.
In VRS, the flow enters a recirculating pattern, which has
the effect of reducing thrust and causing an increase in de-
scent rate. This condition is especially hazardous close to the
ground while operating at high altitudes above sea level. An-
other concern with VRS is that the typical response of the
helicopter is reversed, such that collective application may in-
crease the descent rate. The primary recovery method is to fly
away from the recirculating flow.
Dynamic rollover is another hazard of interest, where the
helicopter rolls over while on the ground due to the combined
action of the main and tail rotors with a pivot point established
by the landing gear. While dynamic rollover is a well-known
hazard, its name hides the fact that there are several possible
ways to encounter a rollover, both dynamic and static. In dy-
namic, the vehicle is translating or lifting off, while the land-
3
ing gear provides a pivot point when it is prevented from mov-
ing. A static rollover is primarily experienced on helicopters
with a high-mounted tail rotor, where the increased moment
about the ground contact point can cause a tipover. In either
case the recovery requires pilot inputs that may be counter-
intuitive, as cyclic control alone is usually not sufficient to
prevent a rollover. Further, during normal flight an increase in
collective input also increases the control moments possible
through cyclic input. While in contact with the ground, the in-
crease in the moment about the pivot point far outweighs any
gains in control forces and moments at the rotor, so this typ-
ical pilot response can be counterproductive in rollover pre-
vention.
Flight condition representation
Accurately representing a flight condition requires the under-
lying physics to be properly modeled. The modeling choices
reflect this fact, as well as the need to balance the fidelity with
the intended application in the context of a HFOQA system.
While the requirements are not narrowly defined and com-
putational power can be reasonably expected to continue in-
creasing, parsimonious choices are preferred. In addition to
modeling effort and computational time, consideration was
also given to the availability of model parameter values and
models elements were chosen so that parameters were either
readily available or could be estimated.
To analyze the flight conditions of interest, two model-
ing approaches were taken. The first approach aims to use
a simple physics-based equation to detect the event from pa-
rameters available in the data. A simple mathematical model
is used to derive a physics-based boundary to help identify a
particular condition. In prior work (Refs. 20,22) it was shown
that physics-based models can aid the typical HFOQA sys-
tem, and the approach was demonstrated in a case of power
management during autorotation practice. The model allows
operational changes to be taken into account, creates an op-
portunity to adapt the detection to other vehicles, and helps
integrate other sources of information, such as wind, through
kinematic relationships. This approach is again used in the
present work, using a dedicated model to define the VRS
boundary and detect flight conditions which are within the
VRS region. The use of this type of simplified model allows
rapid execution times and is ideal for direct implementation
in a data monitoring system (Fig.1), with the obvious need to
develop models for every safety condition. However, for well
known hazards this effort is warranted since the models im-
prove the detection capability by providing a more localized
condition boundary while simplifying the extension of moni-
toring capabilities to other monitored vehicles.
A more general approach is to use a single model with suf-
ficient fidelity to simulate the vehicle’s response at many con-
ditions of interest, with the potential to automate the discov-
ery and definition of hazard boundaries. Similar approaches
have been taken by other researchers in the field, primar-
ily with regard to maneuver evaluation and envelope protec-
tion (Refs. 23–29). In this manner, a single approach which is
more general and aims to discover unsafe conditions through
pertubations of control inputs and the monitoring of a metric
defined to indicate when limits are reached. In this work, a
flight dynamics model is implemented in Matlab based on es-
tablished theory from 30, 31 and used to study the dynamic
rollover condition. This type of approach is more suitable
to explore the extremes of the operational envelope and help
identify conditions which are not well defined, or are rare
events (Ref. 32) that have not been adequately observed in
practice.
Model components
Based on the types of conditions typically monitored by
HFOQA and the fact that most such conditions pertain to
pilot-related actions, the model must have the capability to
relate vehicle motion and performance parameters with pilot
inputs, as well as other vehicle parameters and environmen-
tal parameters. Since most of the accidents whose causes are
tracked by HFOQA are not mechanical but rather pertain to
the pilots, a flight dynamic simulation similar to that described
in Padfield (Ref. 31) as “Level 1” is sufficient for most flight
4
well within the operational flight envelope. Where our model
deviates from convention is in the fact that ground based ma-
neuvering is also considered, and the inflow model must be
valid in and around the vortex ring state.
Below we provide an overview of the model elements, with
a particular focus on the unique aspects of the present model.
These elements are of greatest importance to the conditions
which were considered in this investigation. For example,
fuselage aerodynamics were neglected in the dynamic model
due to the intended use in dynamic rollover analysis. Thus
it is important to ensure the relevant elements are present if
the analysis is carried out in other parts of the operating en-
velope. The approach using the dynamic model is general
enough to be carried out with a different model from the one
presented, which would not alter the manner in which the re-
sults are post-processed or used in a monitoring setting.
Fuselage equations of motion
The fuselage is represented as a rigid body with mass and iner-
tia properties, upon which all forces and moments developed
by the rotors, other aerodynamic surfaces and any additional
components of the helicopter are applied to, expressed in the
body frame and applied about the CG.
A commonly used earth frame in flight dynamics is the
North East Down (NED) frame. The NED frame follows the
vehicle cg and has the x-axis pointing north,the y-axis is ori-
ented toward east of the vehicle, and the z-axis is pointed
down toward the center of the Earth. A common and valid
approximation is to assume a flat earth model, which means
the curvature and rotation of the earth is neglected. Local vari-
ations in terrain can still be included, however.
It is convenient and common to express the forces and mo-
ments acting on the fuselage in the body-frame, which has
its origin at the vehicle CG and is aligned with the vehicle’s
primary dimensions. The x-axis points toward the front, the
y-axis is oriented toward the right, and the z-axis is perpendic-
ular to both and pointed downwards. The body translational
and rotational rates are expressed in this frame. Equations 1
and 2 are the expressions for the translational and rotational
velocities of the vehicle.
 
U
V ∗body =  V  (1)
W
 
p
ω ∗body =  q  (2)
r
In the above equations, the * superscript denotes quantities
expressed in the body-frame. Fuselage rotational rates are the
pitch rate p, roll rate q, and yaw rate r.
To evaluate the transient motion of the helicopter as it re-
acts to pilot inputs, the derivatives of the translational and an-
gular rates are needed, which yield the translational and angu- X is then performed using an appropriate
Integration of Ẋ
lar accelerations as follows: method (commonly a 4th order Runge-Kutta integration
  scheme) which results in the following rigid body state vector:
U̇
∗
V body =  V̇  = −ω
V̇ ω ∗body ×V
V ∗body + (F
F ∗g + F ∗cg )/m (3) X = [X Y Z U V W φ θ ψ p q r]T (9)
Ẇ
Rotors
 
ṗ The main rotor represents the most significant source of forces
ω ∗body =  q̇  = I −1 (−ω
ω̇ ω ∗body × Iω
ω ∗body + M ∗cg ) (4) and moments acting on the helicopter in flight. In this work,
ṙ the rotor is modeled using individual rigid blades having flap
and pitch degrees of freedom, with the airloads calculated us-
where m is the mass of the helicopter and I is the moment of ing blade element theory (Refs. 30, 31, 33). A full 360 degree
inertia tensor expressed in the body frame. F ∗g is the force lookup table for a sample airfoil (Ref. 30) is used to obtain
of gravity resolved in the body frame. F ∗cg and M ∗cg are the the lift and drag coefficients at all angles of attack. The tail
forces and moments generated through the rotor, aerodynamic rotor is modeled in a similar fashion, with the distinction that
surfaces, fuselage drag and any other component, such as the flap degrees of motion for each blade are neglected. In order
landing gear. to generate control moments, the rotor blades flap to reorient
To obtain the vehicle position in the earth frame, with re- the thrust vector according to pilot input, so the calculation of
spect to some origin, another transformation is required to this motion is very important for a flight dynamics simulation.
bring the body-frame values to the earth NED frame. The The blade motion is calculated for each blade using a flapping
transformation of quantities between the earth, body, and any equation of the form:
other reference frame used by the model is facilitated through
the use of a rotation tensor. The rotation tensor can be con- MA = Bβ̈ + Ω2 (B cos β + mb exg R2 ) sin β (10)
structed using a series of rotations, R = Rφ Rθ Rψ about the where MA is the applied aerodynamic moment in the positive
pitch, roll and yaw axes of the vehicle (3-2-1 sequence): flapping direction, and B is the component of the mass mo-
The rotation matrix is orthonormal and its inverse and trans- ment of inertia matrix Ib corresponding to rotations about the
pose are equivalent. The transpose is used to express the y-axis. This equation is a simplified version neglecting fuse-
body-frame velocities in the earth frame, yielding the position lage motions. Using the same treatment as the rigid body de-
derivatives:   velopment for the fuselage, the motions of each blade can be
Ẋ
calculated in response to fuselage rates. The present model
Pe =  Ẏ  = RT V ∗body
Ṗ (5)
assumes the acceleration of the fuselage are much smaller
Ż
than the accelerations of the blade, which reduces the stiff-
Calculating of the fuselage orientation in the earth frame is ness of the problem and improves the computation time. Ad-
done by transforming the body rotational rates into the earth ditionally, the purpose of this model is to examine large scale
frame and integrating. The following Euler-angle transforma- motions of the overall helicopter, so higher-harmonic terms
tion is used for this purpose, which must be inverted before are neglected since their primary effect is on the vibration re-
pre-multiplying the body rotational rates: sponse of the vehicle.
 
1 0 − sin(θ )
Inflow
Leb =  0 cos(φ ) cos(θ ) sin(φ )  (6)
0 − sin(φ ) cos(φ ) cos(θ ) One of the most important aspects of rotor modeling is cal-
culating the airloads, which depend primarily on the inflow
The resulting rate of change of the earth-referenced bank, el-
through the rotor disk, or else the airflow experienced by the
evation and heading angles is
rotor. There are many choices available in the helicopter lit-

φ̇
 erature (Refs. 34, 35), with varying degree of fidelity and ease
−1 ∗
α e = Leb ω body =  θ̇  (7) of implementation. For the purpose of this effort, the in-
ψ̇ flow model should consider flight into the VRS regime, since
this condition is a known safety hazard. Several model have
The body-frame and earth-frame quantities describing the mo- been proposed that consider VRS in particular, such as the
tion of the vehicle can be assembled in a vector of state deriva- Wolkovitch (Ref. 36), Peters (Ref. 37), ONERA (Ref. 38)
tives for the fuselage: and Johnson (Ref. 39) models. Most of these models pro-
  vide an expression for the boundary of the VRS region based
Pe
Ṗ on a physically relevant criterion, such as vortex convection
∗
V body 
 V̇  T speeds, stability, Vz drop and similar. This type of boundary is
X =
Ẋ  α e  = Ẋ Ẏ Ż U̇ V̇ Ẇ φ̇ θ̇ ψ̇ ṗ q̇ ṙ
 (8)
ideal for immediate online application for monitoring or limit
∗ protection (Ref. 38). Several of these models also provide an
ω body
ω̇
5
extended inflow model that is valid up to and within the VRS
region. Further, Johnson shows a good agreement for dynamic
simulation of entry into VRS, and for this reason, this model
was implemented in the current simulation and used in both
as a standalone simplified condition boundary and within the
dynamic model.
νh2
ν=p
Vx2 + (Vz + ν)2
with the exception that the a term is retained. Equation 12 is
valid for a constant forward velocity, which is the reason it
only contains Vz terms. To include the fit in the flight dynam-
ics simulation and in the VRS boundary, a non-dimensional
lookup table is created, with the values multiplied by the hover
induced velocity to obtain dimensional quantities. A further
development shown in (Ref. 39) is the extension of the VRS
model to time-domain simulation by casting the result as a
(11)
first order differential equation witht the time constant defined
in equation 13.

0.7 0.7
3 τrev = =q (13)
momentum theory
λh CT
2
curve fit
2.5 VRS model Since the same approach is taken for both main rotor and tail
rotor inflow, two additional states are added to the simulation
2 and integrated in time.
8/8h

1.5 Landing gear

Landing gear struts are modeled as nonlinear springs and

1
dampers with a rigid attachment to the fuselage. The de-
flection is only in the direction of the strut, with a nonlinear
0.5 spring and damping constant representing the realistic behav-
ior of an oleo strut. In addition to the strut, the landing gear
0 model also contains simplified tire force generation. Each of
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2
Vz/8h
the “tires” is represented by ground-level springs which allow
cornering forces to develop as a result of ground maneuver-
ing, similar to the models described in (Refs. 40, 41). Sev-
Fig. 2. Inflow model extension to include the VRS regime eral models were considered, beginning with the very popu-
(Ref. 39). lar Pacejka “Magic Formula”, a very useful empirical model
based on extensive data. This model is very widespread in the
automotive industry. Most of the model outputs depend on
sideslip angle of the tire, which may be undefined for a he-
3 licopter operating while stationary. Other models considered
included the physically well defined brush model, and the Lu-
2.5 Gre model (Ref. 42). The lumped LuGre model (Ref. 43)
was shown to be a good approximation of the distributed Lu-
2 Gre model, especially when tire alignment moments are ig-
increasing nored. In the present work, the implemented contact model
forward speed
8/8h

1.5 is based heavily on the lumped LuGre model, which could be

said to be very similar in concept to the contact model de-
1
scribed by (Ref. 40).
Figure 4 shows the calculation of the side force generated
0.5
at the ground contact point. During active ground contact,
the contact patch is allowed to move in the x direction which
causes the distance δcontact to increase when a the velocity has
0
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 a component in the body y-direction. This is perfectly accept-
Vz/8h able when the vehicle is stationary, and a side force causes the
vehicle to accelerate laterally. During forward motion, the slip
Fig. 3. Inflow model in forward flight. of the tire has to also be considered. In the present case, a slip
angle is defined based on the magnitude of the lateral force,
and is multiplied by the tire velocity to obtain the sideward
ν = a + bVz + cVz2 + dVz3 (12) component. This is denoted as Vslip in fig. 4. The combina-
tion of body lateral velocity and slip velocity yields the final
In Eq.12 a is usually taken to be zero, which allows the lateral velocity of the contact patch, which is integrated along
exact fitting to two points and a derivative at one of the points. with the rest of the body states to yield the “tire” displacement
ONERA performs a similar procedure for their inflow model, at all times in the simulation.
6
 Δ contact
Contact Ftire
point
Vslip
t = t0+Δt
Vpatch
Vx Vx
Vtire
Vy
t = t0
x able condition has been achieved. In the case where a limit
y used in the prognostics and health monitoring of dynamic ma-
Fig. 4. Force due to tire and contact point motion.
Simulation output and risk metrics
Typical inputs to the overall model are the pilot controls as
well as environmental settings. Using different settings for
the vehicle configuration (weight, balance) and environmental
variables such as wind velocity, the effect of critical safety
thresholds can be investigated.
The outputs of the static and performance models are es-
timated parameters which are generated based on vehicle or
flight data. In the case of autorotation, the minimum descent
speed can be calculated for every forward velocity, and then
combined with the instantaneous vehicle flight state to esti-
mate the power requirement. For the vortex ring state, the
model can again output the boundary of the VRS regime based
on inflow considerations. The outputs from simulations us-
ing the dynamic model are time-histories of the vehicle states,
most notably its position and orientation, as well as perfor-
mance metrics and any other internal model parameters. The
time histories of the relevant parameters are used to establish
the safety of the simulated conditions. For example, the ve-
hicle may reach an excessive attitude, exceed a load or other
limit, or come in contact with the ground or other object, in
which case the operational condition is deemed unsafe. Based
on previous work, both in aviation and in other fields, as well
as our own, we use a time-based formulation to determine a
safety margin for a given flight condition. For example, in
HFOQA it might be that an operator defines an entry into the
VRS region to be slow descending flight that triggers the con-
dition indicator for a user-specified length of time, usually on
the order of a second or more. As will be seen in the results
7
section, the boundaries constructed on a time-based criterion
naturally consider this aspect.
First, a flight condition is selected in the vicinity of the
flight envelope to be investigated. The vehicle is then trimmed
at this flight condition, if trim is achievable, or a particular
starting point is specified. In cases where flight conditions
from flight data are being investigated, a data point can be
used for this purpose.
The space of simulation inputs is then discretized over the
range of values that are of interest. In the present case, this
includes lateral cyclic and tail rotor pedal inputs, along with
main rotor thrust changes. The full set of all possible model
input combinations represents all of the forward simulation
runs that must be performed for the given flight condition.
Finally, the outputs are collected and post-processed with
regard to the input combination that was used to generate
them. This final stage contains a check whether an unaccept-
has been breached, the time required to achieve the end state
is measured beginning from the time of control application,
known as first hitting time. This type of metric is commonly
chines, as well as in some vehicle stability protection systems.
While it is necessary to know the physical limits of the vehi-
cle, how and when those limits are reached can vary with ve-
hicle configuration and environmental variables, so a model
which can track these changes and modify the detection ac-
cordingly is very useful in ensuring effective monitoring using
a HFOQA system. Further, the results are unified, resulting in
a form of output that is generic and can be expressed in terms
of parameters that are most relevant for the monitored condi-
tion.
These results can be used by the operator directly, or fur-
ther refined to enable algorithmic detection of similar condi-
tions in actual flight data based on the pre-computed simu-
lation results. The benefits of the present approach over the
traditional HFOQA paradigm are in the ability to examine
in detail the types of conditions which are often poorly cap-
tured in regular flight data. Assuming the relevant physics
are well-described, the model-derived indication of safety can
be evaluated at a variety of flight conditions, whereas typical
HFOQA safety events are static or narrowly defined. The tem-
poral component available through dynamic simulation allows
a more objective comparison between different conditions by
relating them in terms of the time to achieve a certain unde-
sired state. The present approach is intended to reduce the
reliance on event-specific knowledge and lay the groundwork
for future research aimed at using the results of numerous sim-
ulations around a flight condition of interest to identify unsafe
events and define the limits on the controls to avoid them.
RESULTS
The primary purpose of this paper is to showcase an approach
where typical data monitoring analyses are supplemented with
physics-based models. One facet of this work is the experi-
ence gained with the use of models and data, and how the two
approaches can be combined to enhance the effectiveness of
the current state-of-practice in helicopter flight data monitor- 3000

ing systems. The results from the model evaluations are either
implemented directly in a monitoring system as boundaries in 2000

the case of the condition-specific models, or can be imple-

1000

Vertical speed [ft/min]

mented as boundaries after post-processing in the case of the
dynamic simulation model. In both cases, the application of
0
physics based models affords additional capability for analy-
sis, monitoring and understanding of operational aspects that
-1000
can potentially increase the safety benefits possible through
traditional HFOQA.
-2000

Flight data
Vortex Ring State Model use in HFOQA -3000 VRS boundary
VRS encounter
In HFOQA implementations using simplified models for con- -4000
dition detection, the model is used in the same manner as reg- 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Horizontal speed [knots]
ular safety events, with the exception that the monitoring lev-
els (condition indicators) are physically meaningful quantities
output by the model instead of pre-defined thresholds estab- Fig. 5. Detection of VRS using boundary from Johnson
lished by experts and fine-tuned over a period of time. In prior (Ref. 39).
work (Ref. 22) it was seen how a simple performance model
of a helicopter can help distinguish unsafe flight segments dur- encountered during the flight. The trajectory is a clear indi-
ing an autorotation practice flight. The results are positive and cation of the rapid and nearly vertical descent during vortex
indicate that the application of physics-based models can lead ring state encounter. Though this example uses a simulated
to reduced false alerts by virtue of boundaries that adapt to the set of flight data, the analysis is nearly identical in the real-
vehicle and flight condition based on parameters available in world case. The primary difference would be related to issues
the flight data and external or estimated data. with noise and other artifacts in the data, though most of the
The same principle was applied to the detection of flight hardware used for this purpose is very reliable and performs
near the Vortex Ring State regime in the present work. The sufficient conditioning of the data before the data upload is
VRS boundary is usually expressed in terms of the horizon- completed.
tal and vertical velocities Vx and Vz (Ref. 39), and many re- Because the detected condition is related to the properties
searchers are in general agreement on the location of this re- of the flow through the rotor, the same principles can be ap-
gion. Figure 5 shows this boundary for a simulated flight data plied to any rotorcraft, conceivably allowing the same model
record, defined based the inflow model described above. The to be applied across a range of vehicles with minor modifi-
boundary is defined as the point of vertical descent rate where cations. This is a direct benefit for HFOQA operation, since
the inflow gradient changes, seen as a “bump” in fig.2. The the manual safety event definition can be aided by physically
helicopter was intentionally flown into the VRS region several
times, and at each time step the flight state of the vehicle was
checked against the boundary valid at that flight state. In this 4000
flight data
case the detection is based on a logical test against the VRS 3500 VRS encounter
boundary, which is identical to the approach broadly used in ground elevation
HFOQA. The primary difference is that the VRS boundary 3000
shown here is scaled with the hover induced velocity, so ve-
Altitude [ftmsl ]

hicle size and weight as well as atmospheric conditions are 2500

taken into account. 2000
Figure 6 shows the altitude profile of the same simulated
flight over time, with ground height shown. This type of graph 1500
is more commonly found in HFOQA, and it clearly shows the 1000
portions of the flight where VRS was experienced. In this
flight, VRS was deliberately approached and entered 3 times, 500
with a resulting increase in vertical descent rate. The recover-
ies was performed using both the traditional procedure and the 0
0 100 200 300 400 500
newly popularized “Vuichard” technique, which uses tail rotor Time [s]
thrust to help exit the influence of the vortex. As an example
of how this result may be used in typical HFOQA, the flight’s Fig. 6. Flight profile of simulated flight with VRS en-
trajectory is shown on a Google Earth map (fig.7), which is counter.
one the ways operators analyze flights and assess any hazards
8

VRS
Fig. 7. Flight track of simulated flight with VRS encoun-
ters.
meaningful values for boundary parameters.
Flight dynamics simulation model
The more general approach is to define safety event bound-
aries based on the dynamic model of the vehicle and a unified
measure of risk. Starting from a region of interest in the oper-
ating envelope, the simulated vehicle is “flown” with varying
control inputs until some limiting condition is reached. This
is obviously a much more computationally intensive task than
the direct application of limited models, but the processing
of the simulation output allows risk to be measured in terms
of remaining time, so that comparisons can be made between
conditions that are usually monitored in terms of different sets
of parameters. For example, the proximity to the H-V bound-
ary is expressed in height and speed, whereas the proximity
to the VRS boundary is described in terms of horizontal and
vertical speed. The notion of proximity is complicated when
the parameters used to describe it are in different dimensions,
and the temporal formulation is a potential way to circumvent
this concern by describing “proximity” in terms of the time
required to reach a particular condition.
Fig. 8. Range of ground taxi maneuvers.
Figure 8 shows several trajectories calculated using the
simulation of a typical ground taxi. At the 2s point in the sim-
ulation, an off-trim input is applied which results in a change
in direction. This figure illustrates a sample of maneuvers
9
that can be executed by a helicopter during ground taxi, re-
quiring both main rotor and tail rotor rotor input. With most
helicopters, performing this maneuver requires the pilots to
compensate for the tail-rotor moment using main rotor lateral
cyclic. In all cases depicted in fig. 8 the inputs are coordinated
and the outcome is a safely executed ground turn.
Fig. 9. Typical turn and a rollover case.
However, the risk for rollover exists if the controls are not
coordinated well or in a timely fashion. In fig.9 the two cases
shown follow nearly the same ground track, yet due to in-
appropriate cross-coupling of the controls one of the cases
shows an unsafe outcome. Figure 10 shows time-histories of
relevant parameters for these two simulated scenarios, clearly
showing the deviation and rapid increase in roll angle, roll
rate and other parameters in the case where rollover was ex-
perienced. In this case, the off-trim control inputs are applied
at 2 s into the simulation, so the first-hitting-time measured
from this point is 7.2 s.
This approach is repeated in a trade study using combina-
tions of lateral cyclic and tail rotor pedal. Again, starting from
trimmed ground taxi, control was applied and the output was
analyzed for excessive roll angles. Larger than normal ranges
of control input were used in order to capture hazards that may
be only slightly beyond the physical control ranges. The result
of this study was a trajectory for every combination of inputs,
with the corresponding maximum angle achieved. A cutoff
of 30 degrees of roll was used, which is roughly the point
at which parts of the helicopter contact the ground, though
a more sophisticated collision detection is planned for future
implementations.
Figure 11 is a graphic representation of the processed out-
put. Here the value of the roll angle at the end of the sim-
ulation run is shown against the two control inputs used in
this simulation to generate the data. The contours represent
increasing roll angles, starting with the smallest angles in the
middle of the graph and increasing outward. The region on ei-
ther side of the graph shown in black indicates where the max-
 imum physically allowable angle has been reached, which can
first hiting time
be considered as contact with the ground. This type of map-
20
ping between inputs and outputs can be used in training and
Roll angle [deg]

in crew communication to inform operators about the hazards

0 associated with a particular flight condition, which is dynamic
rollover during taxi in this example.
-20

-40
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
time [sec]
Yaw rate [deg/sec]

40
20
0
-20
-40
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
time [sec]
10
Roll rate [deg/sec]

-10

-20
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
time [sec]
4
Velocity [m/sec]

Fig. 12. Time to maximum roll angle vs. cyclic and tail
rotor control combination.
2
gradual taxi turn
rollover
0 In addition to identifying the regions where negative out-
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 comes are possible, it is be beneficial to quantify the reaction
time [sec]
time available as a measure of the risk associated with each
point of the envelope. In figure 12 the combinations of in-
put which do not result in a crash within the simulation time-
window are assigned a much longer time value than found in
Fig. 10. Comparison of a typical turn and a rollover case. the rest of the simulated trajectories. In this figure, the green
regions are regarded as safe control inputs, with more reaction
time available than the rest of the input space. Outside of this
region, the time to reach a critical condition is progressively
shorter, and is calculated for every combination of input using
the first hitting time metric. The type of mapping of Fig. 12
is one of the main results of this work that improves over the
standard HFOQA events based on static logical thresholds.
First, the result is more a continuum than a crisp thresholds,
though an level can be easily specified. This continuum can
be representative of the proximity to a certain condition, rather
than just having an indication of whether a condition has oc-
curred. Another benefit of the representation of figure 12 is
the ability to identify additional hazards or interesting behav-
ior around what would otherwise be considered the extent of
the operational envelope.
Comparing the output from the dynamic model to the
boundary from the operator and even the one defined using
the simplified 2-D model (Ref. 22), we can see that there are
more complex regions visible in the output of the dynamic
Fig. 11. Maximum roll angle achieved vs. cyclic and tail model used in this investigation. Cornering moments are not
rotor control combination. considered in the 2-D case, and they tend to exacerbate the
rolling motion induced by the tail rotor, but oppose the rolling
10

Fig. 13. Roll rates vs. lateral cyclic and tail rotor input.
Fig. 14. Yaw rates vs. lateral cyclic and tail rotor input.
motion when the turn is initiated using the main rotor. It seems
reasonable to expect different cases of rollover due to cyclic
or tail rotor input, but the simulations show that there are addi-
tional possible outcomes, that may not be initially regarded as
unsafe, but are certainly undesirable. These are cases where
the helicopter begins a rapid yawing motion due to excessive
tail rotor input, while the cyclic is applied in a way that op-
poses the rolling moments enough to keep the vehicle in this
condition for an extended period of time. Another example is
the case where the vehicle is taxiing at high main rotor thrust
levels - excessive cyclic and high roll angles on the ground
can cause the tires to break free and the vehicle to enter a
slide. These two cases are both undesirable, but may well be
recoverable, which will be the topic of further research. For
example, consider figures 13 and 14, where the maximum roll
rate and maximum yaw rate are shown. The maximum roll
rate occurs roughly at the same location in the input space as
the maximum roll angle. However, parts of the region marked
11
as “safe” in Fig. 12 when the calculation is based purely on
roll angle, are shown to have excessive yaw rates in figure 14.
Without considering yaw rate, an optimistic boundary may
be adopted, leading to potential problems in the presence of
obstacles or terrain. Therefore additional limits on the yaw
rate and translation velocity are specified which limit the re-
gion. The alternative is that some other manner of detecting a
critical condition, such as collision detection, must be imple-
mented for these vehicle states.
At present, both the unsafe outcomes and these undesir-
able and risky alternative outcomes will be considered to be
beyond the limit of acceptable operation. Considering mul-
tiple critical conditions simultaneously reduces the safe input
region to a smaller portion of the input space. Figure 15 shows
the combined results of control input sweeps at three different
collective (thrust) settings.
The results are contour plots defined for equal values of
time-to-condition for each collective setting. The 5 and 10
second levels were chosen for illustration purposes, but the
entire gradient up to the maximum time evaluated in the sim-
ulation run is available. An operator may select different time
thresholds to use as training material, or in a data monitoring
system where the contour can be implemented as a boundary
in a manner similar to the simple models described above, as
well as existing HFOQA events. In addition to providing a
result which can be used to define a detection boundary, the
result in Fig. 15 contains information about how the set of
acceptable inputs is altered by changes in collective. One ob-
vious but very important aspect is the drastic reduction in the
size of the region. As the vehicle nears the moment of takeoff,
the region of lateral cyclic and tail rotor input gets very small
around the trim point.
A defining characteristic of helicopter piloting technique is
the need to constantly compensate for cross-coupling effects
between the different controls. In Fig. 15 this is reflected in
the fact that the “center” of the contour moves with the trim
point, which changes depending on the thrust setting. From
the figure it is clear that at higher thrust settings, much higher
values of tail rotor input are required.
The type of mappings shown in Fig. 15 are immedi-
ately useful for communicating hazards in crew training ma-
terial, as well as for implementation in a database as detection
thresholds, operating on real data. The simpler models can be
applied directly in a data-based monitoring system, whereas
the results of the dynamic simulation studies must be com-
puted offline.
Another benefit of the present approach is that regardless
of the parameters used to define the critical condition bound-
ary (such as representing VRS in terms of Vx and Vy ), the
temporal information provides a gradient that points to the
region with higher time-to-critical condition, which is associ-
ated with a lower risk. In the rollover case, the critical bound-
aries are established based on roll angle, yaw rate, and roll
rate, but the result is presented in terms of time to reach any
of those conditions. The introduction of another critical con-
dition would not affect the presentation of the results, which

Fig. 15. Variation of time-to-critical condition boundary
for different collective settings.
is a benefit of the present approach.
Gradient information is useful for both monitoring pur-
poses and limit protection (Ref. 38). In addition to direct im-
plementation is the possibility of coupling this approach with
a more sophisticated monitoring system that may automati-
cally determine and track hazardous flight conditions by only
specifying the minimum acceptable remaining time. By per-
forming this analysis ahead of time, it is possible to exhaust
the space of possible outcomes and obtain a thorough under-
standing of the investigated conditions and their effect on op-
erational safety. In the present analysis, a subset of conditions
was considered, but the approach is general in that it can be
applied in other parts of the flight envelope without modifi-
cation. The present approach makes it possible to establish
physically-relevant safety events in a traceable manner and
provide a substantiated indication when hazards are detected
in a HFOQA system.
CONCLUSIONS
The helicopter community is ready for further safety improve-
ment. HFOQA is a highly promising approach to enable re-
ductions in accidents by identifying contributing factors, un-
safe operation, and other undesirable occurrences, that might
otherwise go unnoticed or unreported. This work investigated
the use of physics-based models to support analysis of flight
data from regular flights. The main conclusions from this
work are as follows:
1. Detection of flight into the VRS regime was demon-
strated using simulated flight data and a simple boundary
based on an inflow model. It was shown that a relatively
simple model can provide boundaries that can be a direct
replacement for existing HFOQA events, yet circumvent
at least part of the limitations of typical events by adapt-
ing to the physical characteristics of the monitored vehi-
cle.
12
2. The use of a dynamic simulation was also shown for the
purpose of establishing bounds on safe operation in ad-
vance of any specialized event definition. This approach
required the analysis to be performed ahead of time.
3. Some results like the performance-based metrics and the
VRS boundary can be implemented directly; the results
of the dynamic simulation can be used after some post-
processing to transcribe the parametric boundary to a
form suitable for database use
4. Representing the risk associated with a condition through
the first-hitting-time metric can provide a unified metric
as well as a gradient that can be used to establish a direc-
tion toward reduced risk.
The presented approach will be the subject of further re-
search into means for HFOQA improvement, with the hope
that better monitoring and understanding of helicopter haz-
ards will have a role in future reductions of helicopter accident
rates.
Author contact: Alek Gavrilovski, alekg@gatech.edu;
Kyle Collins, kbc@gatech.edu; Dimitri Mavris, dim-
itri.mavris@aerospace.gatech.edu.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was sponsored by the Federal Aviation Adminis-
tration under Project No. 2 ”Rotorcraft Aviation Safety In-
formation Analysis and Sharing” of the FAA Center of Ex-
cellence for General Aviation, PEGASAS (Partnership to En-
hance General Aviation Safety Accessibility and Sustainabil-
ity), via grant No. 12-C-GA-GIT-003 to the Georgia Insti-
tute of Technology. The authors are grateful to FAA project
Technical Monitor Mr. Charles Johnson. The information in
this research does not constitute FAA Flight Standards or FAA
Aircraft Certification policy.
REFERENCES
1 Burgess, S., “The Reality of Aeronautical Knowl-
edge : The Analysis of Accident Reports Against
What Aircrews are Supposed to Know,” http:
//www.ihst.org/portals/54/Reality_
Aeronautical_Knowledge_21MAY12.pdf, Ac-
cessed: 3/11/2016, 2012.
2 NationalTransportation Safety Board, “NTSB Most
Wanted List 2014: Address Unique Characteristics of Heli-
copter Operations,” http://www.ntsb.gov/safety/
mwl2014/01_MWL_HeliOps.pdf, accessed 4/21/2015,
2014.
3 NationalTransportation Safety Board, “NTSB 2015
Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improve-
ments,” http://www.ntsb.gov/safety/mwl/
Documents/MWL_2015_brochure.pdf, accessed
4/21/2015, April 2015.
 4 Larder,
B., “Final Report on the Helicopter Operations
Monitoring Programme (HOMP) Trial,” CAA Paper, , (041),
2002.
5 Civil
Aviation Authority, “Final Report on the Follow-on
Activities to the HOMP Trial,” , 2004.
6 Iseler,
L. and De Maio, J., “An Analysis of US Civil Rotor-
craft Accidents by Cost and Injury (1990-1996),” Technical
Report May, Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, California,
2002.
7 Harris,
F. D. and Kasper, E. F., “U.S. Civil Rotorcraft Ac-
cidents, 1963 through 1997,” Technical Report December,
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, CA, 1998.
8 European Helicopter Safety Team, “Analysis of 2000-2005
European Helicopter Accidents,” Technical report, European
Aviation Safety Agency, Cologne, Germany, 2010.
9 U.S.
Joint Helicopter Safety Analysis Team, “The Com-
pendium Report : The U . S . JHSAT Baseline of Helicopter
Accident Analysis Volume I,” Technical Report August, 2011.
10 U.S.
JHSIT, “Health and Usage Monitoring Systems
Toolkit,” http://www.ihst.org/portals/54/
Toolkit_HUMS.pdf, Accessed: 3/20/2016, 2013.
11 International
Helicopter Safety Team, “IHST Home,”
http://ihst.org, Accessed on 3/15/2016, 2016.
12 Doerflinger,J., Bruniaux, G., Pezzatini, P., Greiller, M.,
and Marcellet, J., “Small Helicopter Operational Monitoring
Programme (HOMP) Trial,” Technical report, European Avi-
ation Safety Agency, 2010.
13 Gavrilovski, A., Jimenez, H., Mavris, D., Rao, A., Shin, S.,
Hwang, I., and Marais, K., “Challenges and Opportunities in
Flight Data Mining: A Review of the State of the Art,” AIAA
Infotech@ Aerospace, 2016, p. 0923.
14 Li,L., Das, S., John Hansman, R., Palacios, R., and Sri-
vastava, A. N., “Analysis of Flight Data Using Clustering
Techniques for Detecting Abnormal Operations,” Journal of
Aerospace Information Systems, Vol. 12, (9), 2015, pp. 1–12.
doi: 10.2514/1.I010329
15 Smart, E., Brown, D., and Denman, J., “A Two-Phase
Method of Detecting Abnormalities in Aircraft Flight Data
and Ranking Their Impact on Individual Flights,” IEEE Trans-
actions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Vol. 13, (3), sep
2012, pp. 1253–1265.
doi: 10.1109/TITS.2012.2188391
16 Chu, E., Gorinevsky, D., and Boyd, S., “Detecting air-
craft performance anomalies from cruise flight data,” AIAA
Infotech Aerospace Conference, Atlanta, GA, 2010.
17 Gorinevsky,
D., Matthews, B., and Martin, R., “Aircraft
anomaly detection using performance models trained on fleet
data,” Conference on Intelligent Data Understanding, Octo-
ber 2012, pp. 17–23.
doi: 10.1109/CIDU.2012.6382196
13
18 Marzat,J., Piet-Lahanier, H., Damongeot, F., and Walter,
E., “Model-based fault diagnosis for aerospace systems: a sur-
vey,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers,
Part G: Journal of Aerospace Engineering, Vol. 226, (10), jan
2012, pp. 1329–1360.
doi: 10.1177/0954410011421717
19 Sembiring, J., Drees, L., and Holzapfel, F., “Extracting Un-
measured Parameters Based on Quick Access Recorder Data
Using Parameter-Estimation Method,” Guidance, Navigation,
and Control and Co-located Conferences, August 2013.
20 Payan, A., Gavrilovski, A., Jimenez, H., and Mavris, D. N.,
“Review of Proactive Safety Metrics for Rotorcraft Opera-
tions and Improvements Using Model-Based Parameter Syn-
thesis and Data Fusion,” AIAA Infotech@ Aerospace, 2016, p.
2133.
21 Federal
Aviation Administration, “Helicopter Flying
Handbook,” http://www.faa.gov/regulations_
policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/
helicopter_flying_handbook/, accessed 5/2/2015,
2012.
22 Gavrilovski,A. and Mavris, D. N., “A Model-Based Ap-
proach for Event Definition in Support of Flight Data Moni-
toring,” 41st European Rotorcraft Forum, Munich, Germany,
2015.
23 Bottasso, C. L., Maisano, G., and Scorcelletti, F., “Trajec-
tory Optimization Procedures for Rotorcraft Vehicles, Their
Software Implementation, and Applicability to Models of In-
creasing Complexity,” Journal of the American Helicopter So-
ciety, Vol. 55, (3), 2010, pp. 032010.
doi: 10.4050/JAHS.55.032010
24 Bottasso, C. L. C., Croce, A., Leonello, D., and Riv-
iello, L., “Optimization of Critical Trajectories for Rotor-
craft Vehicles,” Journal of the American Helicopter Society,
Vol. 50, (February), 2005, pp. 165–177.
doi: 10.4050/1.3092853
25 Bottasso,C. L. and Montinari, P., “Rotorcraft Flight Enve-
lope Protection by Model Predictive Control,” Journal of the
American Helicopter Society, Vol. 60, (022005), 2015, pp. 1–
13.
doi: 10.4050/JAHS.60.022005
26 Borri,
M., Bottasso, C. L., and Montelaghi, F., “Numerical
Approach to Inverse Flight Dynamics,” Journal of Guidance,
Control, and Dynamics, Vol. 20, (4), 1997, pp. 742–747.
doi: 10.2514/2.4106
27 Chen, C., Prasad, J. V. R., and Basset, P.-M., “Vortex Ring
Study Through Helicopter Flight Dynamic Simulation,” Tenth
International Workshop on Aeroelasticity of Rotorcraft Sys-
tems, Presentation, November 2003.
28 Horn, J., Calise, A. J., and Prasad, J. V. R., “Flight En-
velope Limit Detection and Avoidance for Rotorcraft,” Jour-
nal of the American Helicopter Society, Vol. 47, (July), 2002,
 pp. 253. 42 Canudas-de Wit, C., Tsiotras, P., Velenis, E., Bas-
doi: 10.4050/JAHS.47.253 set, M., and Gissinger, G., “Dynamic Friction Models for
29 Jeram, Road/Tire Longitudinal Interaction,” Vehicle System Dynam-
G. J. J., Open platform for limit protection with
ics, Vol. 39, (3), 2003, pp. 189–226.
carefree maneuver applications, Ph.D. thesis, Georgia Insti-
doi: 10.1076/vesd.39.3.189.14152
tute of Technology, 2004.
43 Tsiotras,P., Velenis, E., and Sorine, M., “A LuGre tire
30 Prouty,
R. W., Helicopter performance, stability, and con-
friction model with exact aggregate dynamics,” Proceedings
trol, Krieger, Malabar, FL, 2003.
of the American Control Conference, Vol. 2, 2004, pp. 1457–
doi: 0894649299
1462.
31 Padfield,
G. D., Helicopter Flight Dynamics, John Wiley doi: 10.1109/ACC.2004.182988
& Sons, 2008.
doi: 10.1002/9780470691847
32 Villen-Altamirano, M. and Villen-Altamirano, J.,
“RESTART: a straightforward method for fast simula-
tion of rare events,” Proceedings of Winter Simulation
Conference, 1994, pp. 282–289.
doi: 10.1109/WSC.1994.717150
33 Dreier, M. E., Introduction to helicopter and tiltrotor sim-

ulation, AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astro-

nautics), 2007.
doi: 1563478730
34 Chen,R. T. N., “A Survey of Nonuniform Inflow Mod-
els for Rotorcraft Flight Dynamics and Control Applications,”
Vertica, Vol. 14, 1990, pp. 147–184.
35 Chen,C., Prasad, J., and Basset, P., “A simplified inflow
model of a helicopter rotor in vertical descent,” American He-
licopter Society 60th Annual Forum, Baltimore, Maryland,
Vol. 7, 2004.
36 Wolkovitch,J., “Analytical Prediction of Vortex-Ring
Boundaries for Helicopters in Steep Descents,” Journal of the
American Helicopter Society, Vol. 17, (3), 1972, pp. 13.
doi: 10.4050/JAHS.17.13
37 Peters,
D. A. and Chen, S.-Y., “Momentum Theory, Dy-
namic Inflow, and the Vortex-Ring State,” Journal of the
American Helicopter Society, Vol. 27, (3), 1982, pp. 18–24.
38 Dang-vu,
B., “Vortex ring state protection flight control
law,” 39th European Rotorcraft Forum, Moscow, Russia,
2013.
39 Johnson,W., “Model for Vortex Ring State Influence on
Rotorcraft Flight Dynamics,” Paper December, 4th Decennial
Specialist’s Conference on Aeromechanics, 2004.
40 Blackwell,
J. and Feik, R., “A Mathematical Model of the
On-Deck Helicopter/Ship Dynamic Interface,” Technical Re-
port No. ARL-AERO-TM-405., Aeronautical Research Labs,
Melbourne, Australia, November 1988.
41 Canudas De Wit, C., Olsson, H., Astrom, K. J., and
Lischinsky, P., “A new model for control of systems with fric-
tion,” IEEE transactions on automatic control, Vol. 40, (3),
1995, pp. 419–425.
doi: 10.1109/9.376053
14

View publication stats