No-Emission Wireless Electrical Rotorcraft Autonomous Systems (NEW-ERAS)

NEW-ERAS是一个可行的项目，通过在旋翼飞机上部署本地和自主振动能量采集器、能量存储和动力管理设备，探索分散电源的概念。在机体中，由于通常由气流、发动机运行和起飞、巡航和着陆飞行期间的机动引起的振动，包括转子在内，存在大量不必要的机械能。从热力学的角度来看，振动是产生升力、克服阻力和飞行所需的总能量的一种丰富的、降级的形式，但尚未得到利用。利用新的“智能”结构技术，结合无线通信和电源链路，收集这种能量，可以成为解决与实施新的和广泛的结构健康监测和驱动系统相关的后勤问题的通用解决方案，目标是在未来的飞机和旋翼机中减少燃料消耗和减轻负载。这是因为所有这些系统都是电力驱动的。通过在当地部署基于能量收集的发电机，从能源（发动机）到传感器/执行器的大量电缆/连接设备的机身重量将被最小化。重量的减轻也有助于减少燃料消耗。虽然从结构振动产生能量的设想方法可以应用于飞机、旋翼机和风力涡轮机，但由于申请人、他的团队和他们在卡尔顿大学独特的专用实验室设施的背景，NEW-ERAS将重点放在旋翼机上。

NEW-ERAS is an enabling project that explores the concept of decentralizing the electrical power source by deploying local and autonomous vibration energy harvesters, energy storage and power management devices in rotorcraft. There is plentiful and unwanted amount of mechanical energy available in the airframe including the rotor due to vibrations normally excited by the airflow, engine operation and maneuvers during the takeoff, cruise and landing flight regimes. Under the thermodynamic point of view, vibration is an abundant and downgraded form of the total energy that is required to create lift, overcome drag and fly but has not yet been utilized. Harvesting this energy using new “smart” structures techniques in combination with wireless communication and power links can become a common solution to logistic problems associated with the implementation of new and extensive structural health monitoring and actuation systems that aim fuel consumption reduction and loads alleviation in future aircraft and rotorcraft. This is the case because all these systems are electrically powered. By having locally deployed electric power generators based on energy harvesting, dead airframe weight accompanying extensive cabling / connection devices running from the energy source (engine) to the sensor / actuator will be minimized. This saving in weight also marginally contributes to reduce fuel consumption. Although the envisioned approach for energy generation from structural vibrations may be applied to both aircraft and rotorcraft and wind turbines, NEW-ERAS will be focused on rotorcraft due to the background of the applicant, his team and their unique dedicated laboratory facilities at Carleton University. NEW-ERAS is focused on the generation of power for rotorcraft, especially from the main rotor, which is recognized be the most important source of high-frequency forced aeroelastic vibration in rotorcraft. In addition, NEW-ERAS will investigate for the first time the use of the unique "smart-spring," developed by the applicant and co-inventors in Canada, as a low-frequency generator device to harvest the substantial energy available in the blades lead-lag motion that is otherwise dissipated by dampers to avoid rotor instability. In summary, the question to be addressed by NEW-ERAS is how much electrical power can be practically generated, stored and recycled from the undesired mechanical vibrations in helicopter rotors during typical flight? Then, based on the available power, a few ancillary (sensor and actuator) system demonstrators that could effectively make use of this power will be investigated. The energy harvesting generators, power management and energy storage systems will be integrated with the exemplary ancillary systems to compose electrically low-power autonomous systems. Reduced-scale prototypes of these systems will be designed, fabricated then tested in laboratory-controlled experiments to answer the question.