Active Load-Sensitive Electro-Hydrostatic Actuator for More Electric Aircraft

Abstract

In the flight control system, using an electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA) instead of the currently used relatively mature electro-hydraulic valve-controlled actuator, there are three prevailing concerns, namely heating, size, and stiffness. This paper proposes a novel principle EHA, called active load-sensitive EHA (ALS-EHA), which can actively realize the adaptive adjustment of pump displacement with load pressure. Its principle analysis and mathematical modeling based on the direct load-sensitive EHA (DLS-EHA) configuration is done to obtain the relationship between motor current and hydraulic reduction ratio. Then, its stiffness characteristics are analyzed, especially the influence of hydraulic reduction ratio on impedance at low frequencies combined with investigating the power matching of ALS-EHA. A comparative experiment between the developed ALS-EHA and the EHA with fixed pump displacement and variable motor speed (EHA-FPVM) was carried out. The results reveal that the proposed ALS-EHA can reduce the motor heating and its displacement tracking error is smaller near zero speed owing to its higher impedance from the lower hydraulic reduction ratio under heavy load conditions.