NASA research and development for space telerobotics

The goal of this research is to explore and prevent robust concepts for telerobotic support of space servicing, assembly, maintenance, and telescience tasks. This goal is being addressed through a program of coordinated work in artificial intelligence, robotics, and human factors. The general research objective is the fusion of robot sensing and manipulation, teleoperation, and human and machine cognitive skills into an effective architecture for supervised task automation. NASA is evaluating results of this research program in a ground laboratory telerobot testbed under development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The testbed development activity includes integrated technology demonstrations. The demonstrations show telerobot capabilities to perform tasks of increasing complexity, and duration in increasingly unstructured environments. The first such demonstration is the ground-based grappling, docking, and servicing of a satellite taskboard. The author outlines this demonstration and briefly reports on some aspects of its implementation     

The human/robot interface

The use of telerobotic technology in space exploration is examined. Early aspirations for anthropomorphic designs and advances in the field are reviewed. The application of human factors engineering to robotics design and the human-machine interface are examined. New strategies in design and automation are presented.     

Composite anti-disturbance position and attitude control for spacecrafts with parametric uncertainty and flexible vibration

The rendezvous and proximity operations with respect to a tumbling non-cooperative target pose high requirement for the position and attitude control accuracy of servicing spacecraft.However, multiple disturbances including parametric uncertainties, flexible vibration, and unknown nonlinear dynamics degrade the control performance significantly. In order to enhance the system anti-disturbance ability, this paper proposes a composite anti-disturbance control law for the spacecraft position and at...     

Future architecture of flight control systems

The development of fault tolerant embedded control systems such as flight control systems (FCS) are currently highly specialized and time-consuming. We introduce a conceptual architecture for the next decade control system where all control and logic are distributed to a number of computer nodes locally linked to actuators and connected via a communication network. In this way, we substantially reduce the life-cycle cost of embedded systems and attain scalable fault tolerance. All fault tolerance is based on redundancy. Our philosophy is to cover permanent faults with hardware replication and handle all error processing caused by both permanent and transient faults with software techniques. With intelligent nodes and use of inherent redundancy we introduce a robust and simple fault tolerant system that utilizes minimum hardware and has bandwidth requirements of less than 300 kbits/s, which can be met with an electrical bus. The study is based on an FCS for JAS 39 Gripen, a multi-role combat aircraft that is statically unstable at subsonic speed.     

Neural networks in nonlinear aircraft flight control

This paper describes an approach for incorporating a neural network with real-time learning capability in a flight control architecture. The architecture is also applicable, in general, for the control of processes described by nonlinear differential equations of motion in which there exists a control for each degree of freedom. The main features are that the defining equations of motion for the process to be controlled are poorly known with respect to their functional forms, and that the functional forms, themselves, may undergo sudden and unexpected variation. It is well known that such systems are difficult to control, particularly when the effect of the control action enters nonlinearly. Numerical results based on 6DOF simulations of a high performance aircraft are presented to illustrate the potential benefits of incorporating neural networks as a part of a flight control system architecture     

飞机供电综合控制系统的仿真研究

对先进飞机供电综合控制系统进行了仿真研究。文中给出了一种典型的系统构型,并对系统进行了设备级和系统级的仿真,建立了供电综合控制系统半物理仿真试验模型。对系统进行了仿真测试,验证了供电综合控制系统方案的正确性、结构设计的合理性,完成了系统原理性的研究。     

Intelligent UUVs: Some issues on ROV dynamic positioning

Intelligent unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) fall under two main group categories: the remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), which are characterized by remote operation and presence of a tether cable; and the autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), which are characterized by their autonomous behavior and absence of a tether cable. One fundamental issue of the UUV design is the dynamic position control system. This system plays a crucial role together with the sensor architecture in the degree of system autonomy that can be achieved. This paper is concerned with a few issues when dynamically positioning remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs). By restricting the operating regime of ROVs to slow velocity requirements the paper investigates the implementation of a few decentralized control strategies and compare their performance measures, which are assessed by simulating a nonlinear ROV system model for each control strategy. Issues concerning input tracking, disturbance rejection, and plant variations are discussed. The evaluations consider the use of linear PID feedback and feedforward variants, and a robust nonlinear control strategies applied to a full order, fully coupled, and nonlinear vehicle model. These evaluations consider a vehicle undertaking standard mission activities where the tether cable dynamics, with load estimates obtained from a lumped mass cable model, and the vehicle actuator system are present. The paper shows that much of the performance deterioration may be attributed mainly due to cable inertia. The authors also verify that the nonlinear robust control strategy does not necessarily allow for better performance over the linear feedback control strategies implemented when vehicle motions are confined to slow velocity profiles. These and other partial results will aid the design of the control system for an underwater vehicle currently under construction     

基于MBSE的副翼及其操纵系统研发技术及应用

飞机的设计研发是一项涉及多学科领域、多目标、多约束的复杂系统工程过程,系统耦合紧密、参与人员众多、设计信息庞杂,以文档为中心的需求管理等传统研发方法突显出一定的困难,亟需探索新的飞机设计研发方法。以副翼及其操纵系统为研究对象,对基于模型的系统工程(Model Based System Engineering,以下简称MBSE)方法进行了探索研究:采用达索MBSE方法论-MMS(Modeling Methodology for Systems,以下简称MMS),从使命、服务、功能和组件不同视角对副翼及其操纵系统研发的各个方面进行解析,进而完整定义系统;利用达索3D Experience平台,通过RFLP系统工程架构,进行了副翼及其操纵系统的需求开发、功能分析及逻辑架构设计,完成了需求、功能、逻辑架构、系统仿真、物理设计等模型的关联追溯,实现了以达索MBSE方法论为核心的研发技术的有效应用。     

遥控小型倾转旋翼机飞行控制系统研究

遥控小型倾转旋翼机飞行控制系统研制中所涉及到的关键技术众多,围绕研制中遇到的问题提出了解决措施和技术方案。本文主要讨论遥控小型倾转旋翼机飞行控制系统的系统的结构与配置,包括飞行控制计算机、传感器系统、电动伺服舵机、基本飞行控制规律等。     

Architecture Considerations for Digital Automatic Flight Control Systems

Functional partitioning, redundancy structure, internal communications, and software modularization define the architecture of a digital automatic flight control system (DAFCS). Selection of a suitable system architecture for commercial transports involves such factors as the functional scope, growth provision and flexibility requirements, sensor interfaces, the aircraft's actuator and control surface redundancy, and the dispatch reliability requirements. Trade-offs concerning these various factors are discussed, and it is shown that a very versatile and almost universal DAFCS can be configured to meet the general and peculiar needs associated with each aircraft application. Specific results associated with this system's recent demonstration flights in the DC-10 aircraft, as well as examples from several other transport aircraft applications of the same DAFCS architecture, are used to illustrate the design concepts.     

多电飞机作动系统的体系结构优化(英文)

多电技术的深入发展使得飞机上可选择的功率源和作动器种类越来越多,这导致在机载作动系统体系结构优化设计过程中出现了不同功率源和作动器组合的极端复杂性,传统的"试凑"法已无法完成设计任务。首先介绍了多电飞机飞控作动系统(Flight Control Actuation System,FCAS)的组成,计算了其可能的体系结构数量;其次提出了FCAS体系结构在安全性、重量和效率方面的评价指标,计算了全机各舵面均采用同类作动器时的评价指标值;最后对比分析了现有的各种多目标优化算法,采用遗传算法给出了多电飞机FCAS体系结构的多目标优化设计结果。对比传统的只采用阀控液压伺服作动器的作动系统体系结构,优化后的体系结构可以在满足安全可靠性要求的前提下使系统的重量减轻6%左右,效率提高30%左右。     

制导控制半实物仿真系统设计

首先介绍了制导控制半实物仿真系统功能、仿真平台系统结构。详细论述了软硬件模型、控制工作流程。在实现仿真系统基础上,结合半实物仿真研究设计的实际需求,强调了通用分布式半实物仿真系统开放结构的研究重点和发展趋势。同时给出了系统结构和仿真接口的设计考虑。     

飞机主动重心控制系统设计及应用

以我国先进飞机需求牵引为背景,研究了主动重心控制系统方案和设计方法.首先,构建了一种飞机主动重心控制系统结构方案,用于协调纵向重心与气动焦点之间的关系;其次,基于平衡输油系统建立了重心位移模型,提出了最佳重心位置设计准则,在此基础上设计了基于干扰观测器补偿的主动重心控制器,并将其应用到某型飞机超声速巡航中.仿真结果表明,该主动重心控制系统合理地协调了飞机的纵向稳定性和操纵性,并有效地减小了巡航阻力,提高了巡航的效率和航程.     

一种新的飞行控制系统结构研究

从分析人类神经控制系统的特点出发,采用类比的方法,根据分层递阶的思想,提出一种我国下一代战斗机的飞行控制平台结构.该递阶结构分为三层,即决策层、组织协调层和执行层.并根据各个机载任务的地位和使用资源的不同将其分别归属到这三个不同的层次中.最后,根据目前的软/硬件水平,提出了一个与此递阶结构相适应的物理布局方案.     

通用飞行器气动优化设计数字化集成平台——DIPasda

未来航空工业的发展,需要解决多学科综合设计的关键问题,为新型高性能飞行器的设计提供有力的设计方法和设计工具。DIPasda作为复杂外形设计的通用飞行器多学科优化设计平台,研制目的主要是提供一套新型通用、鲁棒、高效的优化设计架构,应用于通用飞行器工业设计环境,改善传统设计耗时低效的状况,提高新型飞行器设计的效率和精度。DIPasda平台系统包含了优化设计过程中所需用到的各类方法,主要包括数值优化算法、几何模型参数化方法、代理模型方法、高精度的学科分析工具等。通过详细介绍平台的系统架构、主要的功能模块、伴随优化设计和多目标优化设计流程,展现了DIPasda平台系统架构设计的灵活性和功能模块的完备性。最后通过优化算例展示了系统的综合优化设计能力。     

变循环发动机完全分布式控制

采用分布式控制架构可以降低变循环发动机控制系统的重量并有利于系统的开发和扩展。提出了一种完全分布式控制架构,控制算法的计算完全分布到智能执行机构中,计算所需的参数值由智能传感器通过串行数据总线发送到智能执行机构。变循环发动机完全分布式控制系统研发的主要工作是设计分散控制算法和总线通信方案。将控制回路的耦合当作总扰动的一部分,使用线性自抗扰控制器(ADRC)观测并在控制信号中消除总扰动,实现了分散控制。在CAN总线硬件的基础上,使用CANaerospace高层协议设计了时间触发的总线通信方案。从而实现了变循环发动机完全分布式控制。在MATLAB/Simulink环境下使用TrueTime工具箱搭建了仿真系统。使用TrueTime Kernel模块仿真智能执行机构与智能传感器的计算单元,使用TrueTime Network模块仿真CAN总线,并且将线性ADRC和CANaerospace协议写入到计算单元中。仿真结果表明:所建立的变循环发动机完全分布式控制系统能够适应发动机进气状况和健康状况的大范围变化,具有较好的鲁棒性。     

综合模块化航空电子系统软件体系结构综述

作为降低系统生命周期费用（LCC）、控制软件复杂性、提高软件复用程度的重要手段之一,软件体系结构已成为航空计算领域的一个主要研究方向。阐述了综合模块化航空电子（IMA）的理念,分析了推动IMA产生和发展的主要因素。总结了ARINC 653,ASAAC,GOA以及F-22通用综合处理机（CIP）上的软件体系结构研究成果,并讨论了IMA软件体系结构需要解决的若干问题及其发展趋势。在此基础上,对中国综合航电软件体系结构研究提出了一些见解。     

航空发动机分布式控制系统技术分析及系统方案

分析了航空发动机分布式控制系统的系统结构、通讯总线、智能元件、高温电子元器件及分布式电源总线等领域的研究现状,并进行技术成熟度评估.结果表明:航空发动机分布式控制系统研究处于基础研究阶段,各项技术成熟度(TRL)主要处于TRL1~TRL2.针对某涡扇发动机提出基于TTCAN(时间触发控制器局域网协议)总线的过渡分布式和部分分布式两种控制系统方案,分析了各方案中系统结构、控制功能和信号交互特点,以期为航空发动机分布式控制系统进一步研究提供参考.      

Telerobotics: problems and research needs

With major emphasis on simulation, a university laboratory telerobotics facility permits problems to be approached by groups of graduate students. Helmet-mounded displays provide realism; the slaving of the display to the human operator's viewpoint gives a sense of `telepresence' that may be useful for prolonged tasks. Using top-down 3-D model control of distant images allows distant images to be reduced to a few parameters to update the model used for display to the human operator in a preview model to circumvent, in part, the communication delay. Also, the model can be used as a format for supervisory control and permit short-term local autonomous operations. Image processing algorithms can be made simpler and faster without trying to construct sensible images from the bottom. Control studies of telerobots lead to preferential manual control modes and, in this university environment, to basic paradigms for human motion and thence, perhaps, to redesign of robotic control, trajectory path planning, and rehabilitation prosthetics. Speculation as to future industrial drives for this telerobotic field suggests efficient roles for government agencies such as NASA