Advanced sensor fault detection and isolation for electro-mechanical flight actuators

Moving towards the more electric aircraft to be able to replace mechanic, hydraulic and pneumatic components of an aircraft, the aircraft industry calls for new technologies able to support this trend. One of these technologies is the development of advanced electro-mechanical actuators for aircraft control surfaces. Step by step hydraulic actuators are replaced by their electro-mechanical alternatives featuring weight and cost savings. As hydraulic actuators are used for decades by the aircraft industry, they are augmented with advanced signal and model based fault detection and diagnosis systems able to monitor the actuator and initiate adaptations in case of failures. For electro-mechanical actuators such advanced monitoring systems are still in the initial stages. In this paper, fault detection and isolation filters are designed by applying advanced residual filter synthesis algorithms to be able to monitor the sensor of electro-mechanical actuators. This paves the way for possible adaptations in electro-mechanical actuator systems in case of failures.