Flight control system for an aircraft

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11247768-B2
Application number	US-201916691751-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 22, 2019
Priority date	Nov 26, 2018
Publication date	Feb 15, 2022
Grant date	Feb 15, 2022

Abstract

A flight control system for an aircraft comprises a set of actuators for controlling the aircraft and a set of flight control computers only made up of a set of duplex type main computers and of at least one backup computer. All the main computers are configured to implement auto-pilot laws for the aircraft. The set of main computers comprises two computers from a first hardware type, configured to control actuators of the set of actuators as per a first tolerance level and two computers from a second hardware type, different from the first hardware type, configured to control actuators of the set of actuators as per a second tolerance level, less stringent than the first tolerance level.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A flight control system for an aircraft, comprising:
a set of actuators for controlling the aircraft, and
a set of flight control computers configured to control actuators of the set of actuators, wherein:
the set of flight control computers is made up of computers selected from a group consisting of: a set of main computers, and at least one backup computer,
each main computer is of a duplex type, comprising two modules respectively acting in control mode and in monitor mode;
all of the main computers are configured to implement auto-pilot laws for the aircraft;
the set of main computers comprises two first computers, said two first computers being configured to control actuators of the set of actuators as per a first tolerance level; and
the set of main computers comprises two additional computers, said two additional computers being configured to control actuators of the set of actuators as per a second tolerance level, less stringent than the first tolerance level,

wherein, for each of the main computers, the first and second tolerance levels correspond to an authorized difference between orders determined by the module acting in control mode and corresponding orders determined by the module acting in monitor mode.

2. The system according to claim 1 , wherein:
each of the main computers comprises at least one first software partition and one second software partition, the first software partition comprising functions for automatically piloting the aircraft and the second software partition comprising functions for controlling the actuators of the set of actuators; and
for each of the main computers, the module acting in monitor mode is configured to monitor the module acting in control mode independently for each of the first and second partitions, so as to allow the first and second partitions to be deactivated independently of one another.

3. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the computers of the set of main computers comprise modular computers.

4. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the set of actuators includes at least one of the following sub-sets of actuators:
a sub-set of actuators for rudders for primary control of a flight of the aircraft;
a sub-set of actuators comprising the actuators of at least one of slats or flaps of the aircraft;
a sub-set of actuators designed to control a braking and a ground-based steering of the aircraft; or
a sub-set of actuators corresponding to propulsion engines of the aircraft.

5. The system according to claim 4 , wherein each of the main computers comprises a separate software partition associated with each sub-set of actuators and the module acting in monitor mode is configured to monitor the module acting in control mode independently for each of the partitions, so as to allow the partitions to be deactivated independently of one another.

6. The system according to claim 1 , wherein a first one of the two first computers and a first one of the two additional computers are powered by a first electrical power supply, and a second one of the two first computers and a second one of the two additional computers are powered by a second electrical power supply independent of the first electrical power supply.

7. The system according to claim 1 , wherein a first one of the two first computers and a first one of the two additional computers are configured to control a first sub-set of actuators of the set of actuators and a second one of the two first computers and a second one of the two additional computers are configured to control a second sub-set of actuators of the set of actuators, separate from the first sub-set of actuators.

8. The system according to claim 7 , wherein the actuators of the set of actuators are distributed between the first sub-set of actuators and the second sub-set of actuators in such a way that, for a rudder of the aircraft belonging to a sub-set of rudders referred to as critical rudders, a first actuator associated with this rudder forms part of the first sub-set of actuators and a second actuator associated with this rudder forms part of the second sub-set of actuators.

9. The system according to claim 7 , wherein the actuators of the set of actuators are distributed between the first sub-set of actuators and the second sub-set of actuators such that the actuators of the first sub-set of actuators alone allow a flight of the aircraft to be controlled and the actuators of the second sub-set of actuators alone allow the flight of the aircraft to be controlled.

10. The system according to any claim 1 , further comprising:
a set of actuator controllers; and
two independent and different communication networks, wherein
each actuator of the set of actuators is controlled by an actuator controller of the set of actuator controllers,
each of the main computers is connected to each of the two communication networks, and
each of the actuator controllers is connected to each of the two communication networks.

11. The system according to claim 10 , wherein, with each of the two communication networks comprising a set of communication equipment requiring an electrical power supply in order to operate, a first part of the communication equipment of each communication network is powered by a first electrical power supply and a second part of the communication equipment of each communication network is powered by a second electrical power supply independent of the first electrical power supply.

12. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the set of main computers only comprises said two first computers and said two additional computers of the second hardware type.

13. The system according to claim 1 , wherein, for each computer of the set of main computers, the two modules respectively acting in control mode and in monitor mode are similar modules, both in terms of hardware and of software.

14. An aircraft comprising a flight control system according to claim 1 .

Assignees

• Airbus Operations Sas

Inventors

• Fervel Marc

Classifications

• B64C13/505 Primary

  having duplication or stand-by provisions · CPC title

• B64C13/18

  using automatic pilot · CPC title

• B64C19/02 Primary

  Conjoint controls · CPC title

• B64C13/503

  Fly-by-Wire · CPC title

• G06F15/161

  Computing infrastructure, e.g. computer clusters, blade chassis or hardware partitioning (casings, cabinets, racks or drawers for data centers H05K5/00) · CPC title