Review and Analysis of the Reasons Delaying the Entry into Service of Power-by-Wire Actuators for High-Power Safety-Critical Applications

Abstract

This paper deals with safety-critical, high-power actuation in aerospace applications. Using a system-level synthetic view, it identifies, explains and discusses the reasons why electrically supplied, or power-by-wire, solutions have not spread rapidly enough to become a generalized replacement of the conventional, hydraulically supplied ones. Once the actuation needs have been summarized, the drawbacks of conventional actuation and the merits of electrically supplied actuation are listed and analyzed. Then, the challenges to be met in order to mitigate the intrinsic disadvantages of power-by-wire are addressed in detail with a focus on the solutions under development or research. Numerous examples, numerical data and orders of magnitude are provided to support the discussion.