X-wing fly-by-wire vehicle management system

Abstract

A complete, computer based, vehicle management system (VMS) for X-Wing aircraft using digital fly-by-wire technology controlling many subsystems and providing functions beyond the classical aircraft flight control system. The vehicle management system receives input signals from a multiplicity of sensors and provides commands to a large number of actuators controlling many subsystems. The VMS includes--segregating flight critical and mission critical factors and providing a greater level of back-up or redundancy for the former; centralizing the computation of functions utilized by several subsystems (e.g. air data, rotor speed, etc.); integrating the control of the flight control functions, the compressor control, the rotor conversion control, vibration alleviation by higher harmonic control, engine power anticipation and self-test, all in the same flight control computer (FCC) hardware units. The VMS uses equivalent redundancy techniques to attain quadruple equivalency levels; includes alternate modes of operation and recovery means to back-up any functions which fail; and uses back-up control software for software redundancy.