Volocopter Gmbh

Cnrs

Volocopter Technologies Gmbh

Burak Yüksel

Johannes Stephan

Tobias Vermeulen

Sebastian Mores

Ulrich Schaferlein

Jan Zwiener

Benjamin Kirsch

Christoph Seiferth

Ashwath Ramesh

Lucas Duarte

Ulrich Schäferlein

Antonio Franchi

Method of verifying data communication integrity in an aircraft which has first and second data generating and sending entities. Data generated at the first entity is sent to the second entity as messages via a number of intermediate entities. The data communication is a blockchain with blocks, each being added to the blockchain by one of the entities and including a cryptographic hash representative of the prior block, thus linking the blocks. The method includes: a) logging a message subgroup and cryptographic hash at one or more of the first, second and intermediate entities; b) collecting message logs from each entity for verification; c) comparing messages sent by the first entity and messages received by the second entity; and d) if not all messages have arrived at said second entity, comparing message logs of intermediate entity(ies) with the message log of the first entity to identify where loss occurred.

Method and system for verifying data communication integrity in an aircraft

A method of controlling a transition aircraft having actuators and which transitions between a first take-off/landing regime and a second horizontal flight regime, including: controlling a first actuator subset in the first regime and a second actuator subset in the second regime using the flight controller, by: a) providing measurements or estimates of flight parameters; b) depending on a current regime, checking whether a predefined set of conditions for that regime are fulfilled, by comparing flight parameters with threshold values; c) if conditions are fulfilled, signalling a decision-maker and awaiting confirmation regarding a transition to the other regime; d) instructing the flight controller to make the transition if approved; e) after transitioning in step d), commanding the aircraft according to the other regime; and f) returning to step a). Step e) includes gradually blending in a control law for the other regime over time while blending out the current regime.

Method of controlling a transition aircraft and transition aircraft

A method for controlling an overdetermined system with multiple power-restricted actuators that perform a primary task and non-primary tasks, including: a) determining a pseudo-control command based on a physical model of the system, which pseudo-control command represents the torques and a total thrust force acting on the system, b) determining a control matrix, c) dissociating the control matrix into sub control matrices, wherein the sub control matrices and the corresponding sub pseudo-control commands correspond to the primary task for i=1 and for i>1 correspond to the non-primary task(s) and a priority of the non-primary tasks decreases with increasing index i, d) determining actuator control commands for solving the primary task, e) projecting the non-primary tasks into the null space of the primary task, and into respective null spaces of all of the non-primary tasks of higher priority, if present, and f) providing the actuator control commands from d) and e) at the actuators.

Method and control unit for controlling an overdetermined system, system and aircraft

A method for controlling an overdetermined system with multiple actuators, for example an aircraft () with multiple propulsion units (). The actuators perform at least one primary task and at least one non-primary task, including: a) determining a pseudo-control command u∈based on a physical model of the system, which command represents the torques (L, M, N) and a total thrust force (F) acting on the system, b) determining a control matrix D, D∈according to u=Du, where u=Duu∈represents a control command for the actuators to perform the primary task, c) projecting the non-primary task into the null space N(D) of the primary task, so that Du=0 if uu∈represents a control command for the actuators to perform the non-primary task, and d) providing the control commands from b) and c) to the actuators. In this way, the solution of the primary task is not adversely affected by the non-primary task or its solution.

A method for controlling a aircraft with a plurality of drive units, in particular a plurality of electrical drive units, and a controller for flight control. At least one lateral control signal is entered into the controller for flight control in order to initiate a lateral movement of the aircraft. The significant point is that a speed (V) of the aircraft is ascertained through a speed estimation (6) and, depending on the estimated airspeed (V), a commanded roll angle (ϕ) and a commanded pitch angle (θ), a rate of turn ({dot over (ψ)}) is calculated. The lateral movement is automatically initiated with the calculated rate of turn ({dot over (ψ)}) through input of the lateral control signal.

Method and controller for turn coordination of an aircraft, and an aircraft with turn coordination

A method of controlling an aircraft having multiple configurations is provided, wherein each configuration is controlled by a different control law implemented by a flight control device and transition from one configuration to another configuration is achieved by gradually blending out a control law for one configuration and by gradually increasing an impact of a control law for another configuration in the flight control device based on an estimated flight condition of the aircraft by dynamically adjusting, in the flight control device, respective maximum and minimum limit values of control volumes, which control volumes are defined by parameter ranges of control parameters in connection with a corresponding control law for the one configuration and for the other configuration, respectively.

Method of controlling an aircraft, flight control device for an aircraft, and aircraft with such flight control device

A method for monitoring a condition of a VTOL-aircraft (), preferably an electrically propelled, more particularly an autonomous, more particularly a multi-rotor aircraft, with a plurality of spatially distributed actuators (), preferably propulsion units, wherein a primary control () is used for controlling a flight state of the VTOL-aircraft () and at least one secondary control () is used for controlling the actuators () of the VTOL-aircraft (), preferably the propulsion units (); during operation. The primary control () generates a primary data set, which is subject to a first uncertainty, and is entered into an estimation algorithm, and the secondary control generates a secondary data set, which is subject to a second uncertainty, and is also entered into the estimation algorithm. The estimation algorithm processes the primary and secondary data sets and generates an estimation result that is representative of a condition of the VTOL-aircraft (), preferably a health status of at least one actuator (), which estimation result is subject to a third uncertainty that is equal to or lower than the first uncertainty and/or the second uncertainty.

Method and system for monitoring a condition of a VTOL-aircraft

A method of operating an actuator system () having a number k, k&#x2208;, of actuators (), in particular individual propulsion units of an MAV-VTOL aircraft (), in particular electrically powered actuators, wherein a desired control command u&#x2208;, m&#x2208;, for controlling the actuator system () is allocated to real actuator commands u&#x2208;, k&#x2208;, by using a weighted allocation matrix D (W), from an equation u=D(W)u, wherein D(W) is an inverse of the weighted allocation matrix, and the real actuator commands u are applied for controlling the actuators (). The method includes determining a characterizing value u* from the real actuator commands u; determining, at least for some of the actuators (), preferably for all of the actuators (), a deviation e, i=1, 2, . . . , k of a respective actuator command u, i=1, 2, . . . , k from said characterizing value u*; determining, at least for some of the actuators (), preferably for all of the actuators (), a weight w, i=1, 2, . . . , k for a given actuator () as a function w(e), i=1, 2, . . . , k of said deviation e; and using the weights wfor determining said weighted allocation matrix D(W). An actuator system which is operated according to this method and an aircraft with a plurality of propulsion units as a specific use case are also provided.

Method of operating an actuator system, actuator system, and aircraft comprising said method and system

A method for operating an aircraft having multiple drive units including: a) providing a first flight control unit (CTRL-), which activates the drive units according to a first control implementation when CTRL-is active; b) providing a second flight control unit (CTRL-), which activates the drive units according to a second control implementation when CTRL-is active; c) continuously monitoring a function of the currently active flight control unit (CTRL-); d) changing the active flight control unit from the currently active flight control unit (CTRL-) to the newly active flight control unit (CTRL-) in dependence on a result of the monitoring in step c); in which the change in step d) for the newly active flight control unit (CTRL-) includes: d1) initializing starting values of a movement equation of the aircraft implemented in CTRL-using currently known state values (x) of the aircraft; d2) initializing integrators of CTRL-using control commands for the drive units from CTRL-; d3) difference equalization between control commands (u) for the drive units from CTRL-and control commands (u) for the drive units from CTRL-

Method for operating an aircraft, flight control device for an aircraft, and aircraft having multiple drive units

A method of controlling an actuator system including a plurality of k actuators. Each of the actuators-receives a control input u, wherein index i denotes a particular actuator, which control input uis determined depending on a weight matrix W including a weighting factor wfor each actuator and depending on at least a physical maximum control limit ufor each of the actuators. The weighting factors wand/or physical maximum control limit uare actively changed during operation if a first comparison of the control input uor a function f(u) thereof with a set first threshold value yields that the control input uor function f(u) thereof exceeds the set first threshold value. The first comparison is repeated during operation, and a new control input uis determined from the adjusted weighting factor wand/or the adjusted physical maximum control limit uand applied to the actuators.

Method of controlling an actuator system and aircraft using said method

A method of controlling an overly determined actuator system that has a first number of actuators (&#x3b1;) which is greater than a second number of the actuators needed to perform a predetermined physical task. The method includes: automatically controlling the first number of actuators by a control unit (CU) for jointly performing the predetermined physical task; repeatedly checking a functional state of the first number of actuators to detect an actuator failure of any one thereof; in case of any detected actuator failure, generating at least one emergency signal (EM) representative of an adapted physical task to be performed by a remaining number of the actuators. The emergency signal is generated based on kinematics of the actuator system, on known physical capacities at least of the remaining actuators, and optionally on a computational performance model of the actuator system. The adapted physical task includes activating each of the remaining actuators below a predetermined threshold of maximum physical load on a respective actuator and activating the ensemble of remaining actuators in a way to prevent further damage to the actuator system. An emergency control system and an aircraft are also provided.

Method of controlling an activation system, emergency control system, and aircraft equipped with such system

A method of operating an under-actuated actuator system including a plurality of actuators (), preferably for operating a multiactuator aerial vehicle (), wherein the actuators () are individual propulsion units of the multiactuator aerial vehicle (), each actuator having a maximum physical capacity u, the method including: controlling the actuators () by with an actual control input u&#x2208;computed from an allocation equation u=Du, wherein Dis an inverse allocation matrix and u&#x2208;is a pseudo control input defined by a system dynamics equation m(x){umlaut over (x)}+c(x,{dot over (x)})+g(x)+G(x)u=f, wherein x&#x2208;n is an n-dimensional configuration vector of the system, m(x)&#x2208;is a state dependent generalized moment of inertia, c(x,{dot over (x)})&#x2208;are state dependent Coriolis force, g(x)&#x2208;are gravitational forces and f&#x2208;are external forces and torques, and G(x)&#x2208;is a control input matrix which contains the information of under-actuation. The system is under-actuated if Rank (G(x))&#x3c;n or both under-actuated and overly determined in case of k&#x3e;m&#x3e;n and Rank (G(x)D)&#x3c;n, with k,m,n&#x2208;; using state feedback control to recurrently compute a desired pseudo control input ufrom the system dynamics equation. If at least one component of the desired pseudo control input uis greater than a corresponding maximum pseudo control input uthat can be generated based on the actuator maximum physical capacity uand based on positions (or characteristics and configurations) of the actuators within the system, prioritizing at least one of the components of uover the other components of u; and a) by using a prioritizing algorithm, solving the allocation equation for the at least one prioritized component of ubefore solving the allocation equation for the remaining components of u; or b) during state feedback control, adjusting a limiting value of the at least one prioritized component of uby an amount, while keeping respective limiting values of the remaining components of uessentially constant.

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Heidelberg, Germany

Burak Yüksel