This paper presents a numerical investigation on the potential for unsteady aerodynamic
control on integrally-actuated membrane wings made of dielectric elastomers (DEs). They
combine the advantages of membrane shape adaptability, which produces increased lift and
delayed stall, with the benefits of simple, lightweight but high-authority control mechanism
offered by integral actuation. High-fidelity numerical models have been developed to predict
their performance and include a fluid solver based on the direct numerical integration
of the unsteady Navier-Stokes equations, an electromechanical constitutive material model
and a non-linear three-dimensional membrane structural model. Numerical results show
that harmonic actuation of 5.0 kV gives an overall increase in the aerodynamic efficiency
a fixed wing configuration the wing of up to 6.0%, measured as the lift-to-drag ratio. In
addition, the definition of a reduced order model based on POD modes of the complete
high-fidelity system allows the synthesis of a feedback control system to obtain on-demand
aerodynamic performance.