Distributed and remote control of flight control actuation using power line communications

This paper will review distributed architecture of flight control system addressing remote control of the actuator control for conventional servo-hydraulics and electric actuators from functional performance, safety/reliability including availability/fault tolerance etc. This paper will review the concept of power line communication (PLC) and its relevance as a communication scheme for integrated modular avionics (IMA) based Flight Control Electronics addressing remote actuation control and monitoring in particular. The remote actuation control through the use of PLC will be examined for its advantages to eliminate a significant number of wiring/cabling by modulating and transmitting digital data on power cables between the flight control computers and actuators, thus reducing weight and improving the reliability. It will address possible modulation schemes, communications protocol and coupling circuitry needed to ensure a communications system which meets the requirements and reliability of the existing 2-wire digital data bus. It will look at the design considerations for PLC to minimize weight and cost and improve reliability, while meeting civil certification objectives and comparing with current generation ARINC-664/AFDX implementations using dasiastar topologypsila with multiple redundant dasiaswitchespsila implementing dasiaswitched Ethernetpsila.