UAV Auxiliary Propulsion for Flight Control Redundancy
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current air drones lack sufficient safety levels to operate in non-restricted airspace or over populated areas, as they require complex and heavy redundant flight control systems to achieve the necessary reliability, which increases weight, reduces performance, and raises manufacturing and maintenance costs.
Innovation Solution
The integration of a pair of adjustable auxiliary propulsion groups, which can compensate for flight control system malfunctions by controlling the drone's trajectory in all axes, allowing the aircraft to continue its mission, and reprogramming the automatic control computer to manage these operations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If tri-folding of electrical actuators, moving surfaces, and sensors is implemented to achieve reliability, then the probability of loss of control decreases below 10^-7 per flight hour, but the device complexity increases significantly and the weight becomes prohibitive for lightweight drones
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the redundancy requirement from the flight control system and relocates it to the propulsion system. Instead of tripling actuators and sensors, the invention adds auxiliary propulsion units that can independently control the aircraft's trajectory, thereby achieving reliability through propulsion redundancy rather than control system redundancy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent inverts the traditional approach to reliability by not redundancying the control system itself, but rather by adding independent propulsion systems that can compensate for control failures. The auxiliary propulsion units can take over trajectory control functions when the primary flight control system fails, effectively solving the reliability problem through a fundamentally different architectural approach.
2Reliability
If tri-folding of electrical actuators and multiplying of position sensors is implemented, then the reliability level of 10^-8 per flight hour is achieved, but the manufacturing and maintenance costs become too high
Solution Approach 1:
The patent removes the need for complex redundant actuators and sensors by extracting the reliability function and implementing it through auxiliary propulsion units. These units use simpler propulsion technology rather than replicated flight control components, thereby reducing manufacturing and maintenance costs while achieving the same reliability level.
3Reliability
If auxiliary propulsion groups are added to compensate for flight control malfunctions, then the reliability is enhanced without increasing weight, but the device complexity increases due to additional propulsion units
Solution Approach 1:
The auxiliary propulsion units are designed to serve multiple functions: they can provide additional thrust during normal operation, compensate for main propulsion failures, and take over trajectory control when flight control systems fail. This multi-functionality justifies the added complexity by providing comprehensive reliability coverage across multiple failure modes.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs dynamic control of the auxiliary propulsion units, where their thrust and orientation are actively adjusted based on flight conditions and failure scenarios. The autopilot computer dynamically coordinates the auxiliary units with the main propulsion and flight control systems, optimizing performance and minimizing the impact of the additional complexity through intelligent control algorithms.
Data Source
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AI summary
Said aircraft (10) comprises: a cell comprising a fuselage (12), a wing unit (14) and a tail unit (16); a main propulsion group (20) consisting of a motor (22) and a propeller (24); a flight control device (30) comprising electrical actuators (35), movable surfaces (31 to 34) and sensors (36); and an automatic piloting computer (40) which sends instructions to the main propulsion group and to the flight control device. Said unmanned aircraft further comprises a pair of auxiliary propulsion groups (51, 52), each auxiliary propulsion group comprising an electric motor, a propeller which is driven by the electric motor and a means for orienting the plane of the propeller relative to the cell, the piloting computer (40) being programmed to adjust an orientation angle and a rotation speed of the propeller of each auxiliary propulsion group in order to overcome a malfunction in the flight control device and/or the main propulsion group so as to control the path in all the axes, the unmanned aircraft thereby having increased reliability.