A master-slave approach to aircraft engine bleed flow sharing control

A master-slave control strategy is developed for flow sharing control of multiple engine systems, applicable to aircraft and industrial plants. Under the proposed control strategy, one of airflow channels is designated as the master control channel, and its pressure is regulated using pressure sensor measurement. The remaining airflow channels are treated as the slave channels. The air mass flow is also measured in the master channel, and the airflow sensor output of the master channel is utilized to slave the other channels, which are flow-controlled. The proposed strategy avoids simultaneous pressure control of multiple channels and controls the flow sharing error directly with a feedback loop. The theoretical aspect of the proposed scheme has been analyzed using the relative gain array (RGA) technique, and the effectiveness of the proposed control method has been confirmed by results of analysis, computer simulations and experiments.