Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-jwnkl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T19:21:55.859Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

An analytical redundancy scheme for flight control systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

D. McLean
Affiliation:
Southampton University (Formerly Department of Transport Technology, University of Technology, Loughborough)
K. Alkhatib
Affiliation:
Department of Aeronautics, Assad Engineering Academy, Aleppo, Syria

Summary

The normal practice for achieving some specified degree of reliability in automatic flight control systems has been to use methods which employ several identical feedback channels. The use of such methods requires additional sensors and other hardware components. Since such an approach has become increasingly expensive to implement, and attracts operational costs, owing to the increased weight arising from the extra equipment, any method is attractive which achieves the same degree of reliability through the use of only a single hardware path for each feedback channel. This implies the employment of special software techniques for both detecting any channel failures and reconstructing the feedback signals, which are then missing as a result of those failures. Such a scheme is presented and discussed in the paper and a number of results obtained from digital simulation are also presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the scheme for a wide variety of sensor failure conditions. The sensitivity of the scheme to initial errors in the estimation process, to the dynamic nature of the motion sensors, and to errors in the mathematical model of the aircraft dynamics, is also illustrated and discussed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1985 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Alkhatib, K. Analytical redundancy scheme for improving reliability of AFCS for aircraft. PhD Thesis, Department of Transport Technology, Loughborough University of Technology, 1985.Google Scholar
2 Gopinath, B. On the control of linear multiple input-output systems. Bell System Technical Journal, March 1971, 50, 1063 1081.Google Scholar
3 Kalman, R. E. and Bucy, R. S. New results in linear filtering and prediction theory. ASME, J Basic Eng. 1961,93D, 95108.Google Scholar
4 Luenberger, D. G. (a) Observing the state of a linear system. Trans IEEE. 1964, Mil-8. 7480.Google Scholar
Luenberger, D. G. (b) Observers of multivariable systems. Trans IEEE, 1966, AC-11, 190197.Google Scholar
Luenberger, D. G. (c) An introduction to observers. Trans IEEE, 1971, AC-16,596602.Google Scholar
5 Maybeck, P. S. Failure detection through functional redundancy, AFFDL-TR-74-3. January 1974.Google Scholar
6 Maybeck, P. S. Failure detection with excessive hardware redundancy. Proceedings of the National Aerospace Electronics Conference, Dayton. Ohio, USA. 1976,315-322.Google Scholar
7 Mclean, D. and Alkhatib, K. Simulation study of an analytically-redundant flight control system. Proc UKSC conference on simulation, Bath. September 1984,275-288.Google Scholar
8 Stein, G. and Hartmann, G. L. F-8C Adaptive flight control extensions. NASA-CR-2881. September 1977.Google Scholar