Design of an aircraft side-stick controller based on electromechanical power mini drives

Аuthors

Samsonovich S. L.^*, Makarin M. A.^**, Larin A. P.

Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University), 4, Volokolamskoe shosse, Moscow, А-80, GSP-3, 125993, Russia

*e-mail: samsonovich40@mail.ru
**e-mail: MikhailMakarin@gmail.com

Abstract

Design of a side-stick control (SSC) of the aircraft is an important task, which is focused on improving the efficiency and convenience of pilot operation. In addition, application of SSC allows reduce the total weight of the control system.

The paper carries out the analysis of present-day SSCs, describes the effect of added mass inherent to any SSC. It also shows the disadvantages associated with control priority characteristic to passive SSCs, and shows that active SSCs have a number of advantages over passive ones due to permanent synchronous operation.

The paper presents the results of morphological analysis and synthesis of SSC development. It is shown that construction of SSC gimbal joint using two electromechanical drives placed over skew axes allows reducing weight and size figures, and implementation of double-reduction harmonic gear with rolling elements makes it possible to design hybrid control channels. It is found that application of double-reduction harmonic gear with rolling elements for power mini drives with output stage operating as differential mechanism allowing summing up motor and mechanical guide motions is expedient.

The paper reveals that introduction of additional mechanical guide for manual control increases the level of pilots information awareness as well as flight safety level in emergencies.

The paper contains the results of design, mathematical modeling and the appearance of the prototype. The model is based on dynamics of a drive system, taking into account dynamics of permanent magnet synchronous motors, robustness of the design and reducing gear, moments of inertia, and nonlinearities, such as reducing gear backlash and dry friction.

The authors developed a number of algorithms of SSC operation in different modes and described the method of setting the control priority. It is shown that the presence of force sensors improves the functionality of the device.

The paper outlines the structure and operation of the aircraft control system when SSC is in use, and shows that transfer to manual control in case of power-off is possible.

The presented results demonstrate that using of hybrid control channels increases the flight safety level.

Keywords:

side-stick control, power mini drives,more electric aircraft, electromechanical drives, steering gear

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