An assessment of developing dual use electric actuation technologies for military aircraft and commercial application

In recognition of today's shrinking defense budgets, DoD decided that military products must share, wherever possible, technologies being developed in the commercial sector in support of DoD's desire. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) sponsored and funded the Technology Reinvestment Project (TRP) in 1993. The TRP's goal was to develop militarily useful, commercially viable dual-use technology in order to improve the DoD's access to more affordable and advanced technologies being developed for commercial applications. One such project was the Electric Actuation and Control System (EACS) program. The objective of the EACS program was to develop, demonstrate, and package an electric actuation and control system for a large critical flight control surface. A second objective was to design and build an affordable dual use electrohydraulic valve for earth moving equipment hydraulic systems and an aircraft utility actuation system. The focus of this paper is a discussion on the military electric actuation activities performed under the EACS program. In addition, a discussion will cover the potential influence of commercial technologies and design practices on electric actuators for future military weapon systems.