MODELING AND ANALYSIS OF ELECTRO-MECHANICAL FLIGHT ACTUATOR SYSTEM

Electro-mechanical flight actuator (EMFA) systems improve efficiency, reliability, safety, and maintainability in More Electric Aircraft (MEA) programs intended for next generation commercial aircrafts, as compared to the traditional hydraulic systems. A power-by-wire system actuation approach, based on incorporating high torque density brushless motors featuring superior characteristics, is increasingly used in the design of both primary and auxiliary flight control surfaces, improving the system performance while reducing its weight. An EMFA system based on a permanent magnet three-phase synchronous machine fed by a Variable Frequency Current Hysterisis Controlled Inverter and additionally incorporating two outer loops, a position and a velocity loop, is proposed in this work. A MATLAB Simulink/SimPowerSystems software tool is used to model the system and analyze its functionality, accuracy, stability, disturbance rejection and acceleration capabilities, for specific cases of landing and takeoff.