Electromechanical Actuation Technology for the All-Electric Aircraft

Electromechanical actuation is a critical element that must be developed and verified to make the all-electric aircraft a viable concept. For several years the Flight Control Division of the Air Force Wright Aeronautical Laboratories has sponsored activities to demonstrate the credibility of electromechanical actuation systems (EMAS) for primary flight control actuation functions. The foundation for these EMAS activities and several electromechanical actuation development programs are described here. One involves the design, fabrication, and laboratory test of a rotary, hingeline electromechanical actuator. Another involves the development and flight test demonstration of a linear electromechanical actuator for controlling an aileron of a C-141 aircraft. A third involves the design and development of a linear electromechanical actuator for missiles having severe performance, temperature, and volumetric requirements. In addition, a brief summary of the results from two aircraft actuation trade studies compare the baseline (conventional) hydraulic flight control system with an all-electric airplane concept including quantitative comparisons of weight, reliability and maintainability, and life cycle costs.     

State Estimation and Divergence Analysis

A growing memory discrete dynamic model for performing temporal extrapolations along a predetermined path in a random field is presented. This dynamic model is used to drive a linear system that is itself driven by discrete white noise. The coupled system is used to derive a state estimation scheme that recursively processes noisy measurements of the system. In addition, using the aforementioned dynamic model as a reference (truth) model, the authors develop a covariance analysis to measure the estimation errors that occur when the dynamics along the path through the field are modeled as a Markov linear model and state estimation is performed using discrete Kalman filtering. The performance evaluation of an inertial navigation system influenced by the Earth's gravity field aboard a maneuvering ship is provided as a specific illustrative example.     

Determination of Antenna Direction Using TV Signal-Strength Data

A unique method of determining a satellite's antenna direction error, which includes the effects of sensor-errors, reflector thermal distortion, etc., was developed. The principle of the method is to apply a nonlinear least squares method to variations in signal strength received simultaneously at various ground stations to obtain the movement of a premeasured antenna gain pattern. Applying this method to the Japanese medium-scale broadcast satellite for experimental purposes, the system's capability and usefulness were confirmed.     

Weak Signal Detection in Non-Gaussian Noise of Unknown Level

An adaptive threshold detector to test for the presence of a weak signal in additive non-Gaussian noise of unknown level is discussed. The detector consists of a locally optimum detector, a noise level estimator, and a decision device. The detection threshold is made adaptive according to the information provided by the noise level estimator in order to keep a fixed false-alarm probability. Asymptotic performance characteristics are obtained indicating relationships among the basic system parameters such as the reference noise sample size and the underlying noise statistics. It is shown that, as the reference noise sample size is made sufficiently large, the adaptive threshold detector attains the performance of a corresponding locally optimum detector for detecting the weak signal were the noise level known.     

Parallel resonant converter with LLC-type commutation

It is shown that by using a proper transformation of state variables, the third-order system of the parallel resonant converter (PRC) with LLC-type commutation can be analyzed by means of a two-dimensional state-plane diagram. A set of characteristic curves which can be used for the converter design is derived from the analysis. It is shown from these curves that the converter possesses more desirable features than the conventional PRC     

Investigations of Stability & Dynamic Performances of a Current-Injected Regulator

The stability and dynamic performances of a buck/boost regulator employing a current-injected control are examined. Small-signal models for the power state, the multiloop error processor, and the duty-cycle pulse modulator are developed. The error-processor model which incorporates the current-injected loop, the dc loop, and the compensation network permits evaluation of the effects of each individual control loop and their combined efforts toward shaping the performance characteristics of the closed-loop system. Comparisons are made between this modeling approach and earlier approaches. Some important yet subtle dissimilarities are discussed. This model predicts the constant-frequency 50-percent duty-cycle instability which is inherent to the current-injected control.     

The Measurement of Echo Direction in a Phased-Array Radar

For a planar-array antenna with a monopulse feed horn, this study describes a simple algorithm for the determination of the direction of target echoes. Antenna pattern measurements of the array indicate that the direction sines of a received wavefront can be independently obtained with one simple relation between a normalized difference channel output and a direction sine. This paper determines the accuracy of the algorithm.     

On-Line Computer for Transient Turbine Cascade Instrumentation

A 32-channel computer based data acquisition and processing system em has been developed for use with the new type of transient cascade facility at Oxford. This is used for testing turbine blades and nozzle guide vanes at full-scale engine Reynolds and Mach numbers ers with correct wallto-flow temperature ratios. A novel technique for processing transient heat transfer data from thin film surface resistance thermometers has been developed. Measurements of surface ace pressure around blades, and of the upstream turbulence level have been made. The cascade and instrumentation are shown to have advantages both in cost and effectiveness over continuous running cascades.     

9. The venus ionosphere and solar wind interaction

The current state of knowledge of the chemistry, dynamics and energetics of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere of Venus is reviewed together with the nature of the solar wind-Venus interaction. Because of the weak, though perhaps not negligible, intrinsic magnetic field of Venus, the mutual effects between these regions are probably strong and unique in the solar system. The ability of the Pioneer Venus Bus and Orbiter experiments to provide the required data to answer the questions outstanding is discussed in detail.     

Multipath-adaptive GPS/INS receiver

Multipath interference is one of the contributing sources of errors in precise global positioning system (GPS) position determination. This paper identifies key parameters of a multipath signal, focusing on estimating them accurately in order to mitigate multipath effects. Multiple model adaptive estimation (MMAE) techniques are applied to an inertial navigation system (INS)-coupled GPS receiver, based on a federated (distributed) Kalman filter design, to estimate the desired multipath parameters. The system configuration is one in which a GPS receiver and an INS are integrated together at the level of the in-phase and quadrature phase (I and Q) signals, rather than at the level of pseudo-range signals or navigation solutions. The system model of the MMAE is presented and the elemental Kalman filter design is examined. Different parameter search spaces are examined for accurate multipath parameter identification. The resulting GPS/INS receiver designs are validated through computer simulation of a user receiving signals from GPS satellites with multipath signal interference present The designed adaptive receiver provides pseudo-range estimates that are corrected for the effects of multipath interference, resulting in an integrated system that performs well with or without multipath interference present.