Multiaxis redundant fly-by-wire primary flight control system
First Claim
1. A fly-by-wire flight control system for an aircraft that monitors the position of pilot controls and produces flight surface commands that control the movement of a plurality of flight control surfaces on the aircraft to adjust the attitude of the aircraft about roll pitch, and yaw directional axes, the system comprising:
- (a) a plurality of transducers associated with the pilot controls, each of said plurality of transducers producing a signal indicative of the position of a corresponding pilot control;
(b) a plurality of isolated flight control channels, each of which includes;
(i) a plurality of servo loops assigned to one of the isolated flight control channels of the plurality of isolated flight control channels, each servo loop controlling the movement of a flight control surface on the aircraft such that the plurality of servo loops in the isolated flight control channel operate to control a set of flight control surfaces that together adjust the attitude of the aircraft in the roll, pitch and yaw directional axes;
(ii) an actuator controller electronics unit (ACE) that receives the signals from at least some of the transducers; and
(iii) a primary flight computer that is coupled to the ACE and which generates flight surface commands as a function of the signals from the transducers, the ACE for each isolated flight control channel including means for receiving the flight surface commands and for coupling the flight surface commands to the plurality of servo loops, wherein the set of flight control surfaces controlled by each isolated flight control channel is selected so that operation of a single isolated flight control channel is sufficient to fly the aircraft in the event that the remaining isolated flight control channels fail.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A redundant, multi-channel fly-by-wire control system for use in an aircraft is disclosed. The system includes a left flight control channel (60), a center flight control channel (80) and a right flight control channel (90). Each control channel is capable of flying the aircraft in the event the other two channels fail. Included within each control channel is an actuator controller electronics unit (ACE (62, 82, 92)), which transmits a series of pilot control transducer signals to a set of primary flight computers (64, 84, and 94). The primary flight computers combine the pilot control transducer signals with data obtained from an air data and inertial reference unit (145) to generate a set of flight surface commands. Each ACE selects a set of flight surface commands to control the movement of a set of flight control surfaces on the aircraft.
193 Citations
26 Claims
-
1. A fly-by-wire flight control system for an aircraft that monitors the position of pilot controls and produces flight surface commands that control the movement of a plurality of flight control surfaces on the aircraft to adjust the attitude of the aircraft about roll pitch, and yaw directional axes, the system comprising:
-
(a) a plurality of transducers associated with the pilot controls, each of said plurality of transducers producing a signal indicative of the position of a corresponding pilot control; (b) a plurality of isolated flight control channels, each of which includes; (i) a plurality of servo loops assigned to one of the isolated flight control channels of the plurality of isolated flight control channels, each servo loop controlling the movement of a flight control surface on the aircraft such that the plurality of servo loops in the isolated flight control channel operate to control a set of flight control surfaces that together adjust the attitude of the aircraft in the roll, pitch and yaw directional axes; (ii) an actuator controller electronics unit (ACE) that receives the signals from at least some of the transducers; and (iii) a primary flight computer that is coupled to the ACE and which generates flight surface commands as a function of the signals from the transducers, the ACE for each isolated flight control channel including means for receiving the flight surface commands and for coupling the flight surface commands to the plurality of servo loops, wherein the set of flight control surfaces controlled by each isolated flight control channel is selected so that operation of a single isolated flight control channel is sufficient to fly the aircraft in the event that the remaining isolated flight control channels fail. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
-
- 5. The fly-by-wire system as in claim 5, wherein each ACE receives flight surface commands from the primary flight computer in at least one other flight control channel and wherein each ACE further includes means for selecting the flight surface commands that are used to control the movement of the set of flight control surfaces from among those flight surface commands generated by the primary flight computer in its own flight control channel and those received from said at least one other flight control channel.
-
16. A fly-by-wire flight control system for an aircraft that monitors the position of at least one set of controls duplicated at a pilot position and at a copilot position and produces flight surface commands that control the movement of a plurality of flight control surfaces on the aircraft in response thereto, the system comprising:
-
(a) a plurality of transducers associated with the controls, each transducer producing a signal indicative of the position of said controls; (b) a plurality of isolated flight control channels, each of which includes; (i) an actuator controller electronics unit (ACE) that receives the signals indicative of the position of the controls; (ii) a primary flight computer coupled to the ACE, which generates flight surface commands based at least in part on the signals, the ACE including means for receiving the flight surface commands and for coupling the flight surface commands to a plurality of servo loops that control the movement of a set of flight control surfaces on the aircraft; and (c) means for selectively applying the signals directly to the servo loops, bypassing the primary flight computer, so that movement of the set of flight control surfaces is controlled without the flight surface commands generated by the primary flight computers. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20)
-
-
21. A method of controlling the position of a plurality of flight control surfaces on an aircraft comprising the steps of:
-
producing a plurality of transducer signals at both a pilot position and a copilot position, the transducer signals being indicative of control conditions at those positions; selecting a different set of transducer signals from the plurality of transducer signals for each of a plurality of control channels; transmitting each selected set of transducer signals to a separate primary flight computer associated with each control channel; combining the sets of transducer signals in each control channel with data obtained from an air data and inertial reference system to produce a corresponding plurality of sets of flight surface commands; and transmitting the sets of flight surface commands from the primary flight computers to a corresponding plurality of actuator controller units (ACEs); selecting within an ACE a set of flight surface commands from among the plurality of sets; and applying the selected set of flight surface commands to a plurality of servo loops to control a corresponding set of flight control surfaces on the aircraft. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23)
-
-
24. A fly-by-wire fight control system for an aircraft that monitors the position of pilot controls and produces flight surface commands that control the movement of a plurality of flight control surfaces on the aircraft for adjusting the attitude of the aircraft in a plurality of different directional axes, the system comprising:
-
(a) a plurality of transducers associated with the pilot controls, each of said plurality of transducers producing a signal indicative of the position of a corresponding pilot control; (b) a plurality of isolated flight control channels, each of which includes; (i) a plurality of servo loops assigned to the isolated flight control channel that together control the movement of a set of flight control surfaces on the aircraft; (ii) an actuator controller electronics unit (ACE) that receives the signals from at least some of the transducers; and (iii) a primary flight computer that is coupled to the ACE and which generates flight surface commands as a function of the signals from the transducers, the ACE for each flight control channel including means for receiving the flight surface commands from two or more primary flight computers in different isolated flight control channels, for selecting the flight surface commands that are used to control the movement of the set of flight control surfaces from those generated by the two or more primary flight computers and for coupling the selected flight surface commands to the plurality of servo loops, wherein the set of flight control surfaces controlled by each isolated flight control channel is selected so that operation of a single isolated flight control channel is sufficient to fly the aircraft in the event that the remaining isolated flight control channels fail. - View Dependent Claims (25)
-
-
26. A fly-by-wire flight control system for an aircraft that monitors the position of pilot controls and produces flight surface commands that control the movement of a plurality of flight control surfaces on the aircraft, the system comprising:
-
(a) a plurality of transducers associated with the pilot controls, each of said plurality of transducers producing a signal indicative of the position of a corresponding pilot control; (b) a plurality of isolated flight control channels, each of which includes; (i) a plurality of servo loops assigned to one of the isolated flight control channels of the plurality of isolated flight control channels, each servo loop controlling the movement of a flight control surface on the aircraft and wherein the flight control surfaces controlled by the plurality of servo loops that are assigned to the isolated flight control channel define a set that includes at least a rudder surface, an aileron surface, and at least one pair of symmetrically located spoiler surfaces; (ii) an actuator controller electronics unit (ACE) that receives the signals from at least some of the transducers; and (iii) a primary flight computer that is coupled to the ACE and which generates flight surface commands as a function of the signals from the transducers, the ACE for each isolated flight control channel including means for receiving the flight surface commands and for coupling the flight surface commands to the plurality of servo loops, wherein the set of flight control surfaces controlled by each isolated flight control channel is selected so that operation of a single isolated flight control channel is sufficient to fly the aircraft in the event that the remaining isolated flight control channels fail.
-
Specification