A turbulent boundary layer greatly increases the drag on a wing, and therefore aircraft fuel consumption. By delaying the transition of organized, laminar flow into disorganized, turbulent flow, billions a year can be saved in fuel costs. One way that this transition can be delayed is by using a vibrating surface element to suppress the Tollmien-Schlichting (TS) waves responsible.

Attractive to aircraft designers are compact inlets, which implement curved flow paths to the compressor face. These curved flow paths could be employed for multiple reasons. One of which is to connect the air intake to the engine embedded in the aircraft body. Secondly, they allow for tightly packed, lightweight, and low volume propulsion system designs. Therefore, a compromise must be made between the compactness of the inlet and its aerodynamic performance. Currently, the length of the propulsion system is constraining the overall size of Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs). Thus, more efficient aircrafts could be realized if the propulsion system could be shortened. In order to suppress flow separation regions, passive or active flow control strategies can be employed.

Compact inlets with an S-shape have become widely used in aircrafts due to the numerous advantages compared to conventional ducts. However, due to their low length to diameter ration and low aspect ration, there are some flow phenomena, which are undesirable such as massive separation leading to losses in total pressure and secondary flow structures causing distortion at the Aerodynamic Interface Plane (AIP). These drawbacks need yet to be overcome in order to apply these ducts on a wider range of vehicles.

The inlet to an aircraft propulsion system is typically designed to supply flow to the compressor with minimal pressure loss, distortion, or unsteadiness.