Active control inceptors are cockpit controls such as collective levers, sidesticks, yokes, and cyclic sticks that generate artificial forces against the pilot's hands and feet. Artificial force cues with intelligent limit prediction systems, a control system can use counterforce to provide the pilot with information about the aircraft. The generic open-engineering architecture presented in this paper considers a control system for tactile cues as one that is distinct from an aircraft's flight control system, with a closed tactile feedback loop with the pilot that precedes the command to the flight control system. The architecture has five interdependent functional modules that provide: 1) Arithmetic Limit Prediction, with neural networks as the primary mechanism. 2) Critical Control Position Calculation. 3) Logical Limit Prediction, with fuzzy inference as the primary mechanism. This design recognizes and accommodates logically based cues in addition to the arithmetically based cues. This opens the approach to knowledge based procedural cues. 4) Limit Cue Arbitration. 5) Tactile Interface with several distinct types of force cues. The digital information of the limits and their critical control positions is translated into the 'body language' of forces and displacements. The architecture was validated in manned simulation using a main rotor blade stall avoidance tactile cueing system in the Real-Time Interactive Prototype Technology Integration Development Environment (RIPTIDE) at the Army/NASA Rotorcraft Division.
Open architecture for helicopter tactile cueing systems
Offene Architektur eines taktilen Steuerungssystems für Helikopter
Journal of the American Helicopter Society ; 50 , 3 ; 238-248
2005
11 Seiten, 12 Bilder, 19 Quellen
Article (Journal)
English