Honeywell International Inc.

Honeywell G.m.b.h.

Alan Bruce Hickman

Yang Liu

Lei Zhang

Larry James Yount

Shuai Chen

Xiaodong Chen

William F Potter

Dale D Davidson

Willard Ahart Blevins

Wenwan Feng

Yunfei Zou

A fixed wing unmanned aircraft and a method for operating the same are provided. The fixed wing unmanned aircraft may include, but is not limited to, a failure detection system configured to detect faults in one or more of the plurality of components, a capability evaluation system communicatively coupled to the failure detection system, the capability evaluation system configured to determine a capability level of the fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicle based upon the faults in the one or more of the plurality of components, and a trajectory generation system communicatively coupled to the failure detection system and the capability evaluation system, the trajectory generation system configured to generate a touch down trajectory for the fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicle based upon the determined capability level of the fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicle, wherein when the determined capability level is below a predetermined threshold, the touch down trajectory comprising a stall maneuver configured to minimize a lateral energy of the fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicle.

Unmanned aerial vehicle off-site landing system

Methods and apparatus are provided for estimating aircraft dynamic pressure. The load on the flight control surface actuator that is coupled to a flight control surface is measured. An estimate of the aircraft dynamic pressure is calculated from the measured load.

Aircraft dynamic pressure estimation system and method

Methods and apparatus are provided for more reliably transferring operational control for various aircraft flight control surfaces from a first sub-system to a second sub-system. The present invention provides an Actuator Control Electronics (ACE) wrap-back module that monitors the output of the normal mode control module and switches control to the direct control module based upon the detection of an error condition. The switching function is controlled by a monitoring system that monitors the output from an integrated heartbeat module that emits a pre-programmed signal. The pre-programmed signal is encoded and sent over a communication bus where it is then decoded and validated by comparing the decoded signal to the expected results. Any irregularity in the heartbeat signal automatically triggers a change of control from the first flight control sub-system to the second flight control sub-system.

Methods and apparatus for error-tolerant wrap-back ACE monitor

The dynamic stiffness of a flight control actuator is assessed by providing an actuator control system that includes an actuator and a portion of the actuator is coupled to an aircraft control surface. A command signal is applied to the actuator control system, which causes the production of a pressure differential across the actuator in response to the command signal that is based on the ability of the actuator to react to an inertial load generated by an acceleration of the aircraft control surface. A pressure signal representative of the pressure differential across the actuator is processed and the pressure signal is compared to known pressure differential values produced under similar conditions for specific actuator and specific control surface combinations.

Apparatus and method for verifying the dynamic stiffness capability of hydraulic servo actuators

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Cave Creek, AZ, United States of America

Alan Bruce Hickman