In airline service the reliability of a system is more than the confirmed failures for the system; it is the total removal experience of the system. Thus, the reliability of a system lies not only in the piece part failure rates, but also in the capability to verify and isolate failures. The application of digital technology brings several significant reliability improvements to automatic flight control systems (AFCS) when compared to contemporary analog systems. These advantages are demonstrated by the experience of the digital air data computer (DADC) of the DC-10 and the digital AFCS of the JA-37 Viggen. Experience with this equipment is reviewed, and the results are interpreted in terms of projections for airline DAFCS reliability. The digital system built-in test implemented by a stored program and the central processor gives a system integrity and dispatch reliability unequaled by analog systems. This high-integrity self-test reduces removal rates by giving line personnel a trustworthy tool and more complete automatic test processes for verifying maintenance actions. Digital circuit technology is directly suitable to largescale integrated circuits (LSIC) which reduce piece part counts and improve LRU reliability. Digital circuits are less subject to drift and the attendant difficulty to detect failures. These factors, coupled with the inherent high-integrity self-test, provide the basis for a significant improvement in reliability by the use of a digital automatic flight control system.
Digital Computation Makes AFCS More Reliable
IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems ; AES-11 , 5 ; 851-861
1975-09-01
4548585 byte
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
Digital computation makes AFCS (automatic flight control system) more reliable
Tema Archiv | 1975
|SAE Technical Papers | 1981
|A study of (AFCS) communications measurement program
Tema Archiv | 1973
|A-7A AFCS -- Flight-proved high-gain system
Engineering Index Backfile | 1966
|Application of Fuzzy Logic to Rotorcraft AFCS
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1993
|