Redundant Aerial Vehicle Flight Modules for Autonomous Failover
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing aerial vehicles face challenges in reliability and safety due to single points of failure, particularly in multicopters, which often result in crashes, and solutions like triple modular redundancy are costly and impractical for unmanned systems, requiring human pilots and high-bandwidth data links that are heavy, power-hungry, and complex.
Innovation Solution
The design of an aerial vehicle with multiple subsystems that can operate independently, each with its own control unit, sensors, and effectors, allowing for redundant operation and automated failure detection and response, enabling graceful degradation and autonomous emergency landing, reducing the need for human pilots and complex hardware.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If triple modular redundancy and voting systems are used, then safety against failures is improved, but cost increases and human pilots are required which are impractical for many applications
Solution Approach 1:
Each subsystem includes autonomous failure detection and switching capabilities, allowing the system to self-manage failures without human intervention. The subsystems can automatically detect failures in themselves or the other subsystem and switch control accordingly, eliminating the need for complex voting systems and human pilots.
Solution Approach 2:
The system incorporates failure detection mechanisms that provide feedback about the operational status of each subsystem. This feedback enables automatic switching between subsystems when failures are detected, creating a closed-loop control system that maintains safety without requiring complex external monitoring or human intervention.
2Reliability
If human pilots and high-bandwidth data links are used, then control and safety are improved, but hardware becomes costly, power-hungry, and heavy
Solution Approach 1:
The system replaces the mechanical/physical dependency on human pilots with an automated electronic control architecture. Multiple independent control subsystems with autonomous failure detection and switching capabilities substitute for human intervention, eliminating the need for heavy, power-hungry communication hardware required for teleoperation.
3Ease of operation
If teleoperation hardware is used, then real-time control is improved, but the hardware is difficult to maintain in a redundant way and increases complexity
Solution Approach 1:
Each subsystem is designed as a universal, self-contained control unit that can independently perform all necessary control functions. This universality allows either subsystem to take over in case of failure without requiring complex integration or communication infrastructure, simplifying the redundancy architecture while maintaining real-time control capabilities.
Data Source
AI summary
According to the present invention there is provided an aerial vehicle that is operable to fly, the aerial vehicle having at least a first and second subsystem that are operably connected, wherein the first subsystem comprises a first flight module, first one or more effectors that are selectively operable to generate a first force sufficient to cause the aerial vehicle to fly; and the second subsystem comprises a second flight module, second one or more effectors that are selectively operable to generate a second force sufficient to cause the aerial vehicle to fly; such that the first or second subsystem can be selectively used to fly the aerial vehicle not relying on the one or more effectors of the other subsystem. There is further provided a corresponding method for controlling an aerial vehicle.