Electric Aircraft Flight Control With Torque Mixing for Failure Tolerance
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Solution Overview
Problem
In electric aircraft, maintaining aircraft integrity during flights is challenging due to potential component malfunctions, which can compromise safety for passengers and cargo, especially in eVTOL systems where failures can lead to unsafe operating modes.
Innovation Solution
A flight control system that includes sensors to capture pilot inputs, an inertial measurement unit for detecting aircraft angles and rates, an outer loop controller to generate rate setpoints, an inner loop controller to calculate moments, and a mixer to allocate torque to actuators, ensuring stable flight operations even in malfunction scenarios.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a flight control system is implemented to maintain aircraft integrity, then safety and reliability are improved, but device complexity increases due to multiple controllers and sensors
Solution Approach 1:
The flight control system is divided into multiple independent controllers (outer loop controller, inner loop controller, mixer) that each perform specific functions. This segmentation allows the system to maintain high reliability through distributed control while managing complexity by assigning dedicated tasks to each controller module.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by continuously monitoring aircraft parameters through sensors and preparing control commands in advance. The outer loop controller generates rate setpoints before inner loop execution, and the mixer pre-calculates actuator commands, ensuring rapid response to maintain safety without requiring complex real-time decision-making at each stage.
2Reliability
If multiple controllers and sensors are used to handle component failures, then reliability is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates due to increased system complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The flight control system operates autonomously to manage component failures and maintain aircraft integrity. The multiple controllers and sensors work self-service to detect, diagnose, and compensate for failures without requiring pilot intervention, thereby maintaining high failure tolerance while keeping pilot workload manageable.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors aircraft parameters through sensors and feeds this information back to the controllers. This feedback mechanism enables automatic adjustment of control commands to compensate for component failures, maintaining reliability while reducing the need for manual pilot corrections and simplifying operation during abnormal conditions.
Data Source
AI summary
A system for flight control configured for use in an electric aircraft includes a sensor configured to capture an input datum. The system includes an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and configured to detect an aircraft angle and an aircraft angle rate. The system includes a flight controller including an outer loop controller configured to receive the input datum from the sensor, receive the aircraft angle from the IMU, and generate a rate setpoint as a function of the input datum. The system includes an inner loop controller configured to receive the aircraft angle rate, receive the rate setpoint from the outer loop controller, and generate a moment datum as a function of the rate setpoint. The system includes a mixer configured to receive the moment datum, map vehicle level control torques, received from the inner loop controller, to actuator output and generate a motor command datum as a function of the torque allocation.