Morphing aircraft combine both radical and subtle wing shape changes to improve vehicle performance relative to a rigid airframe. An aircraft wind tunnel model with considerable wing-shape freedom can serve as a tool in learning to model, control, and fully exploit the potential of such vehicles. This work describes the design, development, and initial analysis of a wind tunnel model that combines large and small wing shape variations for fundamental research in modeling and control of morphing air vehicles. The vehicle is designed for five primary purposes: quasi-steady aerodynamic modeling of an aircraft with large planform changes, optimization studies in achieving efficient flight configurations, transient aerodynamic modeling of high-rate planform changes, evaluating planform maneuvering as an control effector, and gimbaled flight control simulation of a morphing aircraft. The knowledge gained from the wind tunnel evaluations will be used to develop general stabilization and optimal control strategies that can be applied to other vehicles with large scale planform changes and morphing flight models. After a brief background on the development of the Morphing Aircraft Program, and previous research ventures, the first phase vehicle development is described. The vehicle function, subsystems, and control are all presented in addition to the results of first phase wind tunnel testing. Deficiencies in the phase one design motivated the phase two development which has led to the current vehicle model: MORPHEUS. The evolution towards the MORPHEUS configuration is presented in detail along with an elementary strength analysis. The new embedded control implementation to permit a rate controllable planform is included. A preliminary aerodynamic analysis is presented to contrast MORPHEUS against the phase one design and an industry morphing concept. In particular, it is shown how the redesigned model has enhanced performance characteristics and the additional degrees of freedom enable greater flexibility in optimizing a configuration, especially with respect to trim characteristics. An expansion of traditional analysis techniques is applied to derive a new optimal twist algorithm for the MORPHEUS model at each planform configuration. The analysis concludes with a hybrid continuous modeling method that combines first-order computational aerodynamic modeling with classic stability expressions and DATCOM enhancements. The elementary aerodynamic coefficients are computed over the range of possible planform configurations and combined with the optimal twist results for preliminary trim analysis. This work precedes phase two wind tunnel testing and transient modeling. Future work involves expansion into the five purposes detailed for the MORPHEUS model. / Master of Science

Ankara Wind Tunnel (AWT) operated by T&Uuml / BiTAK-SAGE is the only big sized wind tunnel in Turkey. The AWT was constructed in late 1940&rsquo / s but was not operated until 1993 when the tunnel was turned over T&Uuml / BiTAK-SAGE. Since 1993, a series of modernization work has been undergoing in order to match the demands of the 21st century. In wind tunnels, models are positioned by special mechanisms that are instrumented to get the test data specific to the test performed. Models are assembled from their rear sides on these mechanisms called model support systems in order not to influence the flow around them. In this thesis, a conceptual design of a 6 degrees-of-freedom model support system for AWT is accomplished. A detailed system model is developed for the controller design. A force controller to perform store separation tests in real time is designed, tuned, and validated with computer simulations.