MULTI-AXIS SERIALLY REDUNDANT SINGLE CHANNEL, MULTI-PATH FLY-BY WIRE FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM

摘要

A multi-axis serially redundant, single channel, multi-path fly-by-wire control system comprising: serially redundant flight control computers in a single channel where only one “primary” flight control computer is active and controlling at any given time; a matrix of parallel flight control surface controllers including stabilizer motor control units (SMCU) and actuator electronics control modules (AECM) define multiple control paths within the single channel, each implemented with dissimilar hardware and which each control the movement of a distributed set of flight control surfaces on the aircraft in response to flight control surface commands of the primary flight control computer; and a set of (pilot and co-pilot) controls and aircraft surface/reference/navigation sensors and systems which provide input to a primary flight control computer and are used to generate the flight control surface commands to control the aircraft in flight in accordance with the control law algorithms implemented in the flight control computers.

主权项

1. A multi-axis fly-by-wire flight control system that generates flight surface commands to control the movement of a set of flight control surfaces to control the pitch, roll or yaw directional axes of an aircraft, the system comprising:
(A) a plurality of input controls each capable of generating a signal indicative of a commanded position of a corresponding control; and (B) a single flight control channel comprising:
(a) a plurality of control paths, each control path controlling a different subset of the set of flight control surfaces, each control path including:
(i) at least one servo loop assigned to said flight control path of the single flight control channel, said servo loop controlling the movement of at least one predetermined flight control surface such that the at least one servo loop in said control path operates to control the aircraft in at least one of the roll, pitch or yaw directional axes;(ii) at least one flight control surface controller that receives at least one of the cockpit controls signals and is coupled to said at least one servo loop; and(b) a plurality of flight control computers coupled to the at least one flight control surface controller of each control path, which flight control computers each generate flight surface commands according to predetermined flight control algorithms in part as a function of the cockpit control signals, only one of said plurality of flight control computers is an active primary flight control computer at any given time, the remaining computers of said plurality running in standby.