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US 8,521,365 B2Granted
Method and device for the lateral control of a taxiing aircraft
AssigneeAirbus Operations GmbH
InventorsDominique Chatrenet, Fabrice Villaumé, Céline Bourissou, Pierre Scacchi, Louis-Emmanuel Romana
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The invention relates to a device including elements for automatically controlling an aircraft on the ground along the lateral axis, by a dissymmetrical use of the engines and/or brakes of the aircraft.
Claims10
A method for a lateral control of a taxiing aircraft, said aircraft being provided with an orientable front wheel, the method comprising:
- a) generating, by order generating means (2), command orders relating to controlling the orientation of said front wheel;
- b) measuring a current ground speed of the aircraft;
- c) automatically determining from said command orders and said current ground speed, first orders for at least one of the following command assemblies of the aircraft:
- a set of brakes (E1) and
- a set of engines (E2),
- each one of said command assemblies (E1, E2) being able to generate a lateral movement of the aircraft around a vertical axis by means of an asymmetrical action;
- d) subsequently automatically applying the first orders to said command assemblies (E1, E2);
- e) automatically monitoring an orientation system (19) for orienting said front wheel so as to be able to detect a breakdown of such an orientation system (19);
- as long as no breakdown has been detected, automatically generating said command orders by means of said order generating means (2) to said orientation system (19) of the front wheel and not implementing said steps a) to d);
- and
- as soon as a breakdown is detected, automatically implementing said steps a) to d) so as to generate on the aircraft a lateral movement being substantially identical to the lateral movement that would have been generated by the application of said command orders to said front wheel, and not applying said command orders to said system of orientation (19) of the front wheel.
8 more elements
A device for a lateral control of a taxiing aircraft, being provided with an orientable front wheel, said device (1) comprising:
- means (2) for generating command orders relating to the control of the orientation of said front wheel;
- means (3) for measuring a current ground speed of the aircraft;
- and
- a calculation unit (4) for automatically determining, from said command orders and said current ground speed, first orders for at least one of the following command assemblies:
- a set of brakes (E1) of the aircraft et a set of engines (E2) of the aircraft, each one of said command assemblies (E1, E2) being able to generate a lateral movement of the aircraft around a vertical axis by means of an asymmetrical action;
- and
- means (7) for automatically applying said first orders to said command assemblies (E1, E2),
- wherein it further comprises a monitoring system (23) for automatically monitoring an orientation system (19) adapted for orienting said front wheel so as to be able to detect a breakdown of such an orientation system (19), and in that said device (1) is formed such that:
- as long as no breakdown is detected by said monitoring system (23), said device (1) automatically applies the command orders generated by said order generating means (2) to the front wheel via said orientation system (19), and implementing the calculation unit (4) is inhibited;
- and
- as soon as a breakdown is detected by said monitoring system (23), the device (1) implements the lateral control by means of the calculation unit (4) so as to generate on the aircraft a lateral movement being substantially identical to the lateral movement that would have been generated by the application of said command orders to said front wheel, and the orientation system (19) no longer applies the command orders generated by the means (2) to the front wheel.
8 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.