Optimization of a linkage-type transmission mechanism (LTTM)

As a key structure in an aircraft, rudder is employed to steer the flight vehicle under the instructions of center control unit. There are three main components in rudder: actuator, transmission, and control surface. Power is usually transmitted from the actuator to the control surface via the transmission. To some degree, the performance such as the efficiency and rigidity of rudder is directly determined by the transmission. Therefore, the dynamic characteristics was one of the most important evaluation indicators in the design of transmission. Still, transmission should also meet the requirements of structural layout in certain occasions. A novel transmission for rudder is proposed and an optimization method is discussed in this paper. The optimization method combining MATLAB and ADAMS is able to find the global optimal value of the design parameters after calculating all possible values and comparing with each other. The calculation accuracy depends on the calculation step size which is decided by the design requirements. Experiments are carried out to verify the optimized configuration of rudder transmission.