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

Abstract

A method of operating an actuator system () having a number k, k∈, of actuators (), in particular individual propulsion units of an MAV-VTOL aircraft (), in particular electrically powered actuators, wherein a desired control command u∈, m∈, for controlling the actuator system () is allocated to real actuator commands u∈, k∈, 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.