Design Considerations of Fault-Tolerant Electromechanical Actuator Systems for More Electric Aircraft (MEA)

This paper studies the concerns such as architecture and reliability in the deployment of electromechanical actuator (EMA) in the actuation system for more electric aircraft (MEA). First, the reliability of the actuation system architecture such as control surface redundancy and actuator redundancy will be studied to determine an appropriate actuator architecture, with or without considering jamming. Then, the considerations for fault-tolerance and redundancy of the prime electric motor will be discussed in terms of reliability, weight, control complexity, and cost based on a direct-drive EMA designed for MEA. The comparison results demonstrate the configuration of two anti-jamming EMAs with dual three-phase drives connected in parallel can meet the requirements of the safety-critical actuation applications, promoting the deployment of fully electric actuation system on the MEA. Finally, a fault-tolerant motor with double 3-phase system designed for EMA will be presented, with performance under normal and fault conditions validated.