Evaluation of Control Strategies for Single Flap Drive Systems in Multifunctional High Lift Systems

The continuous need for improved high lift performance motivates the evaluation of innovative high lift systems. Single flap drive systems are possible solutions to implement novel functionalities for aerodynamic performance optimization. The previously mechanical coupling needs to be replaced by approved equivalent means. This directly results in high demands on control and monitoring of the multiple single drive systems in order to preserve a safe operation. In the context of the national German research project SysTAvio, strategies for a new concept of a multifunctional high lift system are investigated and presented in this paper. The conceptual system comprises four single flap surfaces, each driven by a local transmission system and powered by a local power control unit. This architecture requires an innovative control strategy for a safe operation of a single drive system as well as synchronous movement of multiple systems. Therefore different variations of peer to peer control architectures have been under study. As an additional task, numerous failures need to be taken into account, which result in variations in the plant controlled by the control loops due to degradation of the drive systems. In order to evaluate the different fault tolerant control strategies, an experimental system of a single flap drive has been realized. Since the interactions of multiple drive systems are key in this matter, a non-linear simulation model of the drive system is developed including the system control units responsible for control and monitoring applications. To apply control design methods and calculate optimized control gains for nominal as well as degraded system health status, linear models are generated. Finally, numerous experiments with the experimental drive system in parallel with the non-linear simulation model exported to a real time platform are carried out for demonstration of the presented control strategies.