Aircraft control system
AssigneeAeroVironment, Inc.
InventorsGreg T. Kendall, Walter R. Morgan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A span-loaded, highly flexible flying wing, having horizontal control surfaces mounted aft of the wing on extended beams to form local pitch-control devices. Each of five spanwise wing segments of the wing has one or more motors and photovoltaic arrays, and produces its own lift independent of the other wing segments, to minimize inter-segment loads. Wing dihedral is controlled by separately controlling the local pitch-control devices consisting of a control surface on a boom, such that inboard and outboard wing segment pitch changes relative to each other, and thus relative inboard and outboard lift is varied.
Claims4
An aircraft characterized by a flight envelope, comprising:
- a laterally extending wing;
- a plurality of control surfaces mounted along the wing;
- and
- a plurality of pitch-limiting devices, each pitch-limiting device being mounted at a separate lateral pitch-limiting-location along the wing, each pitch-limiting-location being proximate the location of one or more of the control surfaces;
- wherein each pitch-limiting device is configured to apply a pitch-limiting torque at its pitch-limiting-location;
- and
- wherein the wing is characterized by a torsional flexibility high enough such that but for the pitch-limiting devices, one or more control surfaces would experience aileron reversal over some portion of the flight envelope.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.