The SAIS project is aimed at designing, developing, manufacturing and qualifying a smart active inceptors system for the cockpit of the next generation civil tiltrotor.
The design will focus on inceptors’ mechanical interfaces and at the same time studies on ergonomics, electromechanical senso-actuators, haptic capabilities, command logic including diagnostic capabilities will be part of SAIS commitment. The project will culminate with the achievement of SOF (Safety of Flight) qualification of the system in order to permit flight trials activities, and with the delivery of one EFA shipset to be installed on NGCTRTD aircraft.
Starting from a preliminary system specification provided by LHD at the project start, the SAIS consortium will compile the compliance matrix to be issued at SRR, then the consortium will proceed with the system design, in order to achieve the best inceptor configuration, by considering weight, volumes, power consumption, complexity, integration, availability, reliability and ergonomics as KPIs. A modeling and simulation tool of the flight control inceptors will be also developed and shared with LHD in order to support NextGen CTR FCS.
During the development, special care will be dedicated at exploring and assessing mechanical designs and solutions, which enhance piloting effectiveness for tiltrotor application, at improving functionalities by capitalizing on active features by introducing world-class innovations for such a kind of equipment.
The final SAIS will be such as to fulfil the following main technical characteristics:
1. Reliable inceptor sets composed by mechanical and software sub-systems to be integrated in the NGCTR-TD cockpit.
2. Reliable smart sensor and actuators to translate the pilots’ commands to tilt rotor desired motion. In particular, in the following figures the motions to be assured are depicted. In addition to them, a further command, related to the thrust/power input, shall be added and included in the set of pilot commands.
3. Active and smart functions to provide feedback to the pilot by means of real-time force and/or haptic feedback (for instance but not limited, as described in SAE ARP 5764, variable spring gradients, force breakouts, detents, ramps, gates, soft/hard stops, etc).
4. Virtual development in order to verify in virtual augmented reality environment the more promising inceptor configurations before passing to the prototyping.
5. Cockpit CAD project optimization in an ergonomic key, by means a hands motion tracking viewer and the use of wearable systems in order to obtain an Ergonomic verification of solutions in the immersive environment. Digital Twin analysis in order to speed up the inceptor assembly and the aircraft integration.
6. Designed to be compliant with the aeronautics practice, rules and main references regulations
