Aircraft wing-to-fuselage joint with active suspension and method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9399508-B2
Application number	US-201314049995-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 9, 2013
Priority date	Oct 9, 2013
Publication date	Jul 26, 2016
Grant date	Jul 26, 2016

Abstract

An aircraft includes a fuselage, a wing, and a decoupled joint interconnecting the fuselage and the wing. The decoupled joint can be an active suspension system. A method of adapting an aircraft to attenuate forces between a main wing and a fuselage thereof includes providing a plurality of sensors upon the aircraft, configured for sensing motion and/or mechanical stress of the main wing and/or the fuselage and producing signals indicative thereof, and providing a plurality of active suspension elements interconnecting the wing and the fuselage, the active suspension elements being configured to move at least in response to the signals to adjust a position of the wing with respect to the fuselage.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An aircraft, comprising:
a fuselage;
a wing having a main spar assembly; and
an active suspension system, interconnecting the fuselage and the wing, the active suspension system including four groups of actuators, positioned at one of four corners of the main spar assembly, each actuator group comprising three actuators oriented at substantially orthogonal angles to each other.

2. The aircraft of claim 1 , wherein the active suspen…

Assignees

• Boeing Co

Inventors

• Lakic Branko
• Vance Jonathan B

Classifications

• B64C3/38

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic

• B64C1/26 Primary

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic