Electrohydromechanical Actuator Control System Using Flight-Hardened Fiber Optic Sensors

Portable electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons are becoming increasingly available to our enemies including adversarial states, terrorist groups, and organized crime. Plans for highly portable EMP weapons are available on the Internet and could be deployed against military and/or commercial aircraft overseas or against civilian aircraft in the U.S. or within ally nations. A coordinated attack on commercial airlines would deal a serious blow to national security and to the economy. Therefore, it is imperative that the U.S. retain technical superiority to protect both military and commercial aircraft against EMP attacks. The primary vulnerability is that aircraft control is almost exclusively electronic and inherently susceptible to EMP weapons. Luna Innovations Incorporated proposes to develop a flight-hardened fiber optic-based control system for airfoil electrohydromechanical actuators. The proposed system will measure pressure, temperature, current, voltage, and rotary and linear position at critical control and monitoring points and will provide feedback for closed-loop control. The fiber optic readout system will be flight-hardened and support 12 sensing channels per card, sampling synchronously at 20kHz (2.0MHz for current). The system is based on an approach conceived specifically to provide 1) high sample frequencies, 2) high channel count, 3) low cost, and 4) absolute measurement.