A major trend in modern aerospace and automotive systems is to integrate computing, communication and control into different levels of the vehicle and/or its supervision. A well fitted architecture adopted by this trend is the Common Bus Network Architecture. A Networked Control System (NCS) is called when the control loop is closed through a communication network. The presence of this communication network introduces new characteristics (sharing bus, delays, jitter etc.) to be considered at design time of a control system.
This work focuses on the influences of data bus protocols on an aircraft Fly-By-Wire (FBW) networked control system. We intent to show, through simulations, the influences of sharing bus on a real time control system. To compare effects, we choose the CAN Bus protocol where the medium access control is event driven; and the TTP protocol where the medium access control is time driven.
We intend to extend this study to a simplified model of an aircraft actuation system, composed by ACE (Actuator Control Electronics) and a “smart” Electro-Hydraulic Servo Actuator as part of a Flight Controls System based on a Fly-By-Wire technology.
As result of this work, it is expected to obtain metrics comparing CAN Bus and TTP influences and FBW control loop for elevator, in order to trade off them and simultaneously validate the applied simulation tools.