Design of a Novel Electromechanical Flight Control Actuation System with Configurable Redundancy for UAVs

Abstract

As the demands of more electric or fully electrify in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) flight control systems are emerging, a novel electromechanical flight control actuation system (FCAS) with the feature of configurable redundancy which is designed for a twin-engine long flight duration UAV is presented. The system is made up of 4 electrical controllers and 13 electromechanical actuators. The 4 controllers are powered by Digital Signal Processor (DSP) and Complex Programmable Logic Device (CPLD), each controller contains 4 power channels and can be utilized as either 4 independent channels or 2 two-redundancy channels according to the requirements of flight control configurations. The controllers are identical and replaceable with each other on board. For this design, the system layout and schematic are firstly presented. Then the detail design of the controller and the actuators are discussed, including the hardware and fault monitoring algorithm designs. Finally the ground test results and test considerations are addressed.