System and method for controlling the thrust of the engines of an aircraft

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10494114-B2
Application number	US-201715478765-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 4, 2017
Priority date	Apr 19, 2016
Publication date	Dec 3, 2019
Grant date	Dec 3, 2019

Abstract

A system for controlling the thrust of the engines of an aircraft comprises a processing unit configured to receive an aircraft speed setting, to determine a control setting for at least one engine of the aircraft as a function of the speed setting and to transmit a setting to a controller of the at least one engine of the aircraft as a function of the control setting. The processing unit is further configured to receive a current turbulence level measurement information item and to add an additional speed setting, as a function of the turbulence level, to the speed setting.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system for controlling a thrust of a plurality of engines of an aircraft, the system comprising a processing unit configured to:
receive an aircraft speed setting;
receive a current turbulence level measurement information item;
add an additional speed setting to the speed setting, said additional speed setting being a function of the current turbulence level;
determine a control setting for at least one engine of the aircraft as a function of said speed setting; and
transmit a setting to a controller of said at least one engine of the aircraft as a function of said control setting,
receive an aircraft speed measurement;
compute a deviation between the speed measurement and the speed setting; and
apply a correction function to the control setting of the at least one engine when the deviation is below a predetermined underspeed threshold or above a predetermined overspeed threshold,
wherein the processing unit is further configured to apply an adaptation function to the control setting of the at least one engine, the adaptation function being configured to produce as output an adapted control setting corresponding to a parameter accepted as input by the controller of said at least one engine,
wherein the adapted control setting output by the adaptation function corresponds to a derivative over time of a thrust of the at least one engine, and
wherein the processing unit is configured to apply the adaptation function prior to the correction function such that the correction function receives the adapted control setting corresponding to the derivative over time of the thrust of the at least one engine.

2. The control system according to claim 1 , wherein the control setting of the at least one engine corresponds to a thrust setting of said at least one engine.

3. The control system according to claim 1 , wherein the correction function is configured to produce as output a corrected control setting of the at least one engine, the corrected control setting corresponding to:
a first positive control setting value when the control setting is below the first positive control setting value and the deviation between the speed measurement and the speed setting is below the predetermined underspeed threshold;
a second negative control setting value when the control setting is above the second negative control setting value and the deviation between the speed measurement and the speed setting is above the predetermined overspeed threshold; and the control setting in other cases.

4. An aircraft comprising a system for controlling the thrust of the engines according to claim 1 .

Assignees

• Airbus Operations Sas

Inventors

• Guingnard Fabien
• Venilal Priteche

Classifications

• F05D2270/122

  Speed or Mach number · CPC title

• B64D31/08 Primary

  for keeping cruising speed constant · CPC title

• F02C9/44

  responsive to the speed of aircraft, e.g. Mach number control, optimisation of fuel consumption · CPC title

• F05D2270/051

  Thrust · CPC title

• G05B15/02

  electric · CPC title