A time-domain inverse aeroacoustic method based on the convective Ffowcs Williams–Hawkings equation is presented. The method allows to determine, in real-time, the unsteady forces exerted on rotating blades in the presence of a moving medium. The inversion procedure is based on a space-time regularization with a mixed l1,2-norm, which guarantees accuracy and smoothness of the solution. The method is initially verified through synthetic acoustic signals emitted by rotating sources in a constant flow, up to a convective Mach number of about 0.88. Then the method is validated through signals generated by a propeller immersed in a wind-tunnel jet flow, up to a Mach number of 0.06. Due to the reduced convective Mach number, the leading aeroacoustic effect is derived from a variation of the blade loading. It is argued that the onset of flow separation at high values of the rotor advance ratio is responsible for the onset of force fluctuations that the inverse method is able to retrieve both qualitatively and quantitatively.@en

An inverse acoustic method is presented in this work, which allows to determine the spatial and temporal distribution of unsteady rotating forces from microphone array measurements. The method is based on the usage of a space–time regularization with a mixed norm. The proposed method can take advantage of a prior knowledge of the space–time characteristics of the unsteady rotating forces to ensure an accurate force reconstruction in real-time, using a smaller number of input signals compared to more conventional inverse methods. Different properties of the proposed method are initially investigated by using synthetic acoustic signals radiated from rotating point sources and computed via an acoustic analogy formulation. Finally, the method is validated by using experimental acoustic signals radiated from the rotor of an unmanned aerial vehicle.

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