Rotorcraft Pilot Controls With Force-Gradient Limit Cueing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Rotorcrafts face challenges in providing intuitive and efficient flight control due to tightly coupled flight parameters, which increase pilot workload and require close monitoring of instrumentation, especially in varying flight regimes.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a fly-by-wire system that provides variable friction and force gradient tactile cues through pilot controls, using a flight control computer to generate tactile cues based on the position of collective controls, decoupling physical flight characteristics and providing customized feedback to pilots, allowing for stable flight without intense monitoring of cockpit instruments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a rotorcraft uses traditional flight control systems with tightly coupled flight parameters, then the control system maintains mechanical simplicity, but the pilot workload increases and requires intense monitoring of instrumentation
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces traditional mechanical flight control systems with an electro-mechanical fly-by-wire system. The FCC receives pilot inputs electronically and generates control signals for actuators, substituting direct mechanical linkages with electronic signal processing and servo mechanisms. This reduces the mechanical complexity at the control interface while adding intelligent control algorithms that reduce pilot workload through automated stability augmentation and parameter decoupling.
Solution Approach 2:
The flight control computer provides automated stability augmentation and parameter management functions that allow the system to self-regulate flight parameters. The tactile cueing system automatically monitors control positions and provides haptic feedback when parameters approach limits, enabling the system to serve itself in maintaining safe operating envelopes without requiring constant pilot attention to instrumentation.
2Reliability
If the rotorcraft provides detailed instrumentation monitoring for tightly coupled flight parameters, then flight safety is improved, but pilot focus is diverted from environmental awareness
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a tactile feedback system through the collective control that provides force and friction cues when flight parameters approach operational limits. The FCC continuously monitors collective position and generates proportional force feedback signals that physically guide the pilot back toward optimal operating ranges. This closed-loop feedback mechanism maintains flight safety by providing intuitive physical guidance while allowing the pilot to maintain focus on external environmental awareness rather than instrument monitoring.
Solution Approach 2:
The tactile cueing system acts as a physical equivalent of visual warning indicators. Instead of requiring the pilot to monitor instrument displays for parameter limits, the system provides direct physical feedback through force and friction changes on the control itself, analogous to how color changes on instrument panels provide visual warnings. This transfers safety monitoring from visual-instrument-based to tactile-control-based, freeing pilot visual attention for environmental awareness.
3Ease of operation
If the rotorcraft uses variable friction and force gradient tactile cues through pilot controls, then intuitive flight control is improved, but the control system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic tactile cueing where the friction and force characteristics of the collective control are not fixed but vary continuously based on flight conditions and control position. The FCC dynamically adjusts the magnitude of force feedback and friction cues in real-time based on the rate and direction of control movement, creating an adaptive, intuitive control experience that responds to pilot inputs with context-appropriate resistance and guidance forces.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the physical parameters of the control interface itself - specifically the friction coefficient and force gradient - as a function of control position and flight regime. By modulating these tactile parameters dynamically, the system provides intuitive guidance without requiring complex mechanical mechanisms, achieving sophisticated tactile feedback through electronic actuation of the control surface properties.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This solution reduces pilot workload by providing intuitive and stable flight control, allowing pilots to focus on the environment while the system manages flight parameters, ensuring safe and efficient operation across different flight regimes.
Implementation Method 1
providing a variable friction cue through the pilot control
Implementation Method 2
providing a gradient force cue through the pilot control that pushes the pilot control toward the threshold
Data Source
AI summary
An rotorcraft including a pilot control, a pilot control position sensor connected to the pilot control and operable to generate a position signal indicating a position of the pilot control, a flight control computer (FCC) in signal communication with the pilot control position sensor and operable to provide a tactile cue in the pilot control in response to the position signal indicating the position of the pilot control exceeds a threshold associated with an operating limit, and further operable to determine a tactile cueing value for the tactile cue according to a relationship between the position of the pilot control and the threshold, and generate a cue control signal according to the tactile cueing value, and a tactile cue element connected to the pilot control and in signal communication with the FCC and operable to control action of the pilot control in response to the cue control signal.