Electromechanical Actuators (EMA) are used in aircrafts to move flight control surfaces such as ailerons or flaps especially in all electric aircrafts and are a popular replacement for Electrohydrostatic Actuators (EHA). EMAs eliminate the possibility of leakage that are generally attributed to pneumatic and hydraulic systems. Electromechanical Actuators also considerably contribute towards weight reduction in Aircraft and thereby result in lower fuel consumption and less contaminant emissions.
The advantages of integrating EMAs into aircrafts are as follows:
Removal of hydraulic fluid and related parts
Reduction of weight and emission
Maintenance cost reduction
EMAs for aircrafts include brushless servo motors, integral planetary gears, smart servo controllers, DC motors, spur gears , analog amplifiers, etc.
Due to the growing emphasis on all electric aircraft and emission concerns globally there is a greater demand for EMAs and also to develop test benches to study them. With the advent of additive manufacturing cost effective and light weight test benches could be fabricated. In order to facilitate a holistic and flexible testing environment the following systems/components will be required :
EMA
Monitoring Sensor
Hydraulic Actuator
EMA Control Unit
Patching Panels
PC
Power control and distribution
Power supply
Control and acquisition system
Signal Conditioners
Mechanical Ailerons and Flap Benches
Rotary Variable Differential Transformers
Load Cells
The test rig thus developed will be able to study the EMAs of the aircraft wing surfaces in the most realistic possible scenario. The EMAs are connected to the Mechanical Aileron and Flap Benches and their control units are connected to the patching panels and EMA control units. The Control and acquisition system controls the test benches and houses the power control and distribution.
Each of the above system has it’s own scope in terms of research and design. CAD tools can be utilised to design the test benches and simulation tools like MATLAB could be deployed to run simulations.
Source : IEEE, Google Scholar
