Aerospace Control and Guidance Systems Committee

Announcements

You must first log in to access prior meeting presentations, register for a meeting, or nominate some for the Ward Award.

If you do not have a login account, or cannot remember the email address associated with your account, please click on the Application Form link below.

Login

Site Search

Search our site:

Upcoming Events

Photos

Meeting Highlights New!

Subcommittee S

Prior Meetings

Abstracts may be viewed by anyone. Presentations are only available to active members who have logged in.

Meeting 132
(coming soon)

Home

Ward Memorial Award

Planning Advisory Board

Downloads

Constitution and By-Laws

About

History

Contact Us

← Return to agenda

Meeting	ACGS Committee Meeting 104 - Charlottesville - October 2009
Agenda Location	5 SUBCOMMITTEE E – FLIGHT, PROPULSION, AND AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE CONTROL SYSTEMS 5.1 CH-53K Flight Control System
Title	CH-53K Flight Control System
Presenter	Walt Carboni
Affiliation	Sikorsky
Available Downloads*	presentation
	Downloads are available to members who are logged in and either Active* or attended this meeting.
Abstract	The Marine Corp has contracted with Sikorsky Aircraft to develop a new heavy lift replacement for the CH-53E helicopter. The new CH-53K will be capable of lifting 27,000 lbs and carrying this load 110 nm. This represents a substantial improvement over the legacy CH-53E. The CH-53K flight control system will be fly-by-wire. The architecture is triplex with self-checking processor pairs in each of the three channels, and is based upon the Sikorsky UH-60MU and S-92 MHP fly-by-wire programs. The main rotor and tail rotor servos, built by Claverham, Ltd., are dual tandem hydraulic actuators operating at 4000 psi provided by two primary engine driven pumps and one utility pump. The actuators are controlled by conventional electrohydraulic servovalves with separate main control valves for each side of the dual tandem cylinders. Redundant delta-pressure sensors feed a force balancing loop within the actuator’s digital loop closures. Extensive use of Aermet 100 steel will ensure actuator ballistic threat survivability. The flight control computers, built by Hamilton Sundstrand, incorporate dual Texas Instruments Input-Output processors and dual PowerPC main processors in each channel. An Active Inceptor System (AIS) built by BAE replaces the conventional cyclic and collective sticks and provide programmable dynamic force feel characteristics through real-time input commands from the flight control computers. The AIS is comprised of cyclic sidearm controllers and a limited throw active collective controller for both crew stations. The AIS will provide the flight crew with tactile cueing when encroaching on control margin limits, power limits and structural limits, as well as “electronically linking” the pilot and co-pilot inceptors. Triplex fiber-optic-gyro inertial measurement units (dedicated to flight control), triplex GPS-aided inertial navigators and triplex air data (static, total and temperature) round out the design. Flight control laws are designed to ADS-33E requirements for Level 1 Handling Qualities in a Usable Cue Environment of 2. The control law structure is a model follower design incorporating a simplified plant inverse model in the forward path. Primary flight control modes are: pitch and roll rate command/attitude hold or pilot-selectable attitude command/velocity hold, heading rate command/direction hold in yaw, and vertical rate command/height hold in the collective axis. A full complement of coupled flight director modes provides pilot relief functions. Since the primary mission of the CH-53K is to carry heavy external loads, the load attach system includes redundant load cells with interface directly with the flight control computers which implement an automatic load jettison function should a cable break in a multi-point load or should the load get snagged. First flight of the CH-53K is planned for the second half of 2012.