Developing electrically actuated landing gear
Researchers at the Institute for Aircraft Systems Engineering at the Technische Universität Hamburg-Harburg, Germany, are developing a completely new kind of actuation system for the landing gear of a regional aircraft. The system raises and lowers the landing gear completely electrically by means of an electromechanical actuator. Operating the landing gear by electrical energy and electromechanical actuators (EMAs) has several advantages:
- Integration into a "more electric aircraft", where the increased use of electrical energy provides more efficient on-board energy distribution and utilization
- Less maintenance work
- Lower friction losses caused by insufficient fluid
- More options for installing supply lines
The theoretical design of the actuation system will now be analyzed by means of a system demonstrator of the landing gear. The experimental system was constructed to allow the entire landing gear system to be operated free-standing on the ground. An integrated load cylinder is used to emulate the loads on the landing gear during flight. The system demonstrator is controlled via a dSPACE system based on a DS1005 Processor Board and various dSPACE I/O boards. All the models were designed in MATLAB®/Simulink®.
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