Method for operating an aircraft, control architecture for an aircraft, and aircraft having same

A method for operating an aircraft (1) having multiple distributed actuators (3) in which the actuators (3) are activated by a plurality of controllers (R1-Rn+1), wherein each of the controllers (R1-Rn+1) determines an associated manipulated variable signal at least for a subset of the actuators (3) and provides the associated manipulated variable signal for the relevant actuator (3), the method including the following steps for at least one said actuator (3):

• i) determining, by way of a given controller (R1-Rn+1), at least one manipulated variable signal for the at least one actuator (3) and transmitting the manipulated variable signal to the relevant actuator (3) and to at least one further one of the controllers (R1-Rn+1);
• ii) receiving, by way of the given controller (R1-Rn+1), manipulated variable signals of other controllers (R1-Rn+1) and relaying these manipulated variable signals to the at least one actuator (3) and to at least one further other one of the controllers (R1-Rn+1);
• iii) collecting a plurality of manipulated variable signals at the at least one actuator (3);
• iv) activating the at least one actuator (3) using a derived manipulated variable signal that is derived from the plurality of collected manipulated variable signals, which derived manipulated variable signal is obtained by voting or averaging.

A control architecture (2a) for an aircraft (1) having multiple distributed actuators (3), in which a plurality of controllers (R1-Rn+1) are provided to activate the actuators (3), wherein each said controller (R1-Rn+1) is configured to determine an associated manipulated variable signal at least for a subset of actuators (3) and to provide the associated manipulated variable signal for the relevant actuator (3), the control architecture (2a) comprises:

• a) each said controller (R1-Rn+1) is assigned a priority ranking, which priority ranking is different from the priority ranking of each of the other controllers (R1-Rn+1);
• b) each said controller (R1-Rn+1) has a signaling connection at least to a subset of the actuators (3);
• c) each said controller (R1-Rn+1) is configured to generate a manipulated variable signal for a relevant one of the actuators (3) and to transmit the manipulated variable signal identified by the priority ranking to the relevant actuator (3) and to at least one of the controllers (R1-Rn+1) having a successive priority ranking;
• d) each said controller (R1-Rn+1) is configured to receive the manipulated variable signals from the controllers (R1-Rn+1) having higher ones of the priority rankings and to relay the manipulated variable signals to the relevant actuator (3) and to at least one of the controller (R1-Rn+1) having a successive priority ranking, in particular to the controllers (R1-Rn+1) having a directly successive priority ranking;
• e) each said actuator (3) is configured to select the manipulated variable signal which is identified by the highest priority ranking for activation thereof.

A control architecture (2a) for an aircraft (1) having multiple distributed actuators (3) in which a plurality of controllers (R1-Rn+1) are provided to activate the actuators (3), each said controller (R1-Rn+1) is configured to determine an associated manipulated variable signal at least for a subset of the actuators (3) and to provide the associated manipulated variable signal for the relevant actuator (3), the control architecture (2a) comprises:

• a) each said controller (R1-Rn+1) has a signaling connection at least to a subset of the actuators (3);
• b) each said controller (R1-Rn+1) is configured to generate a manipulated variable signal for a relevant one of the actuator (3) and to transmit the manipulated variable signal to the relevant actuator (3) and to at least one other one of the controllers (R1-Rn+1);
• c) each said controller (R1-Rn+1) is designed to receive manipulated variable signals from other ones of the controllers (R1-Rn+1) and to relay these manipulated variable signals to the relevant actuator (3) and to at least one further one of the controllers (R1-Rn+1);
• d) each said actuator (3) is configured to collect a plurality of the manipulated variable signals;
• and
• e) each said actuator (3) is configured to generate a derived manipulated variable signal that is derived from the plurality of collected manipulated variable signals, the derived manipulated variable signal being obtained by voting or averaging, for activating the relevant actuator (3).