Enhanced Sensor Monitoring to Maintain Optimal Aircraft Handling in Case of Faults

Abstract

The design and validation of an advanced fault detection and diagnosis system to monitor the state-of-practice triplex redundant angle of attack measurement is presented. The proposed system fully solves the angle of attack sensor fault isolation problem. It thereby enhances the availability of the full control system functionalities in the case of multiple angle of attack sensor faults and helps to maintain optimal aircraft handling characteristics. The proposed fault detection and diagnosis system relies on advanced model-based and signal-based fault detection techniques. The used null-space-based method for the model-based fault detection filter design is extended to increase the filter robustness to model uncertainties. The developed approaches are applied and validated in realistic flight scenarios using a high-fidelity benchmark model of a large commercial transport aircraft. The reported results indicate that the use of the presented fault detection methods can help to maintain optimal aircraft handling in case of faults.