Electromechanical flight actuators for advanced flight vehicles

The aircraft flight quantities and success of the mission depend to a great extent upon the actuator performance, and flight actuators must be designed to achieve the specified criteria. Electromechanical flight actuators driven by electric motors have begun to displace hydraulic technology in advanced flight vehicles. In aerospace application, permanent-magnet stepper motors are perfectly suited due to their efficiency and reliability, low volume-, weight-, and size-to-torque ratios, high power and torque densities, low cost and maintenance, simplicity and ruggedness, etc. Conventional open-loop stepper motor servos do not ensure the required accuracy and dynamic performance. An innovative method in motion control of advanced electromechanical flight actuators is developed, and nonlinear controllers are designed. The specified tracking accuracy, desired stability margins, microstepping capabilities, and disturbance attenuation are ensured by the robust nonlinear controllers synthesized. Analytical, numerical, and experimental results are documented to study the performance of flight actuators directly driven by stepper motors and to demonstrate the efficiency of control algorithms.