Fly-By-Wire Bus Architecture for Fault-Tolerant VTOL Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional fly-by-wire systems for VTOL aircraft require extensive redundancy to ensure fault tolerance, leading to increased wiring and weight, which is undesirable for smaller aircraft like air taxis, and may result in inadequate failure modes and reduced availability of flight control components.
Innovation Solution
A fly-by-wire electrical system with a dual triplex bus arrangement, where each flight control module is connected to a unique subset of buses, reducing physical electrical connections and maintaining high availability by providing independent communication paths and using CAN buses with CRC for data integrity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If fully redundant wiring is implemented in fly-by-wire systems, then fault tolerance and reliability are improved, but wiring quantity and weight increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the bus network into multiple independent subsets (first subset, second subset, third subset) where each control module connects to a unique combination of buses. This segmentation allows the system to achieve redundancy through architectural diversity rather than physical duplication of wiring, reducing overall wiring weight while maintaining fault tolerance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent merges multiple communication paths by having control modules connect to multiple bus subsets simultaneously. Each control module is coupled to a unique subset of buses, creating overlapping communication paths that provide redundancy without requiring complete duplicate wiring for each path.
2Reliability
If redundant control modules are added to ensure fail-operational capability, then system reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The bus architecture is designed with universal connectivity where each bus can serve multiple control modules and each control module can access multiple buses. This multi-functionality allows the same hardware components to serve redundant purposes without requiring separate dedicated wiring harnesses for each redundant path, thereby reducing system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements dynamic fault isolation where control modules can automatically switch between different bus subsets based on detected faults. The unique subset assignments enable dynamic reconfiguration of communication paths without manual intervention or complex switching hardware, maintaining fail-operational capability while simplifying the control logic.
Data Source
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AI summary
Aircraft fly-by-wire systems and related vehicle electrical systems are provided. A vehicle electrical system includes a bus arrangement having a plurality of buses, a first control module coupled to a first subset of the buses, a second control module coupled to a second subset of the buses, and a third control module coupled to a third subset of the buses. The first subset includes a first bus, a second bus, a third bus, and a fourth bus, the second subset includes the third bus, the fourth bus, a fifth bus, and a sixth bus, and the third subset includes the first bus, the second bus, the fifth bus and the sixth bus.