An aircraft airbag inflation system includes an airbag mounted on an external surface of an aircraft. The airbag is configured to inflate in one of multiple stages prior to the aircraft crashing, and each stage is associated with a respective pressure. The system also includes multiple sensors disposed on-board the aircraft and configured to sense aircraft velocities and an aircraft attitude. The system also includes a controller disposed on-board the aircraft and configured to receive multiple signals from the sensors, the multiple signals representing the aircraft velocities and the aircraft attitude sensed by the sensors, determine a crash event for the aircraft based on the received multiple signals, the crash event including an aircraft sink rate, an aircraft attitude at crash time, and an aircraft distance from the impact surface, and determine a stage at which the airbag is to be inflated based on the crash event.
Inflating rotorcraft external airbags in stages
2016-09-27
Patent
Electronic Resource
English
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