Autopilot Control Systems An autopilot is an example of a control system.

Control systems apply an action based on a measurement and almost always have an impact on the value they are measuring. A classic example of a control system is the negative feedback loop that controls the thermostat in your home. Such a loop works like this: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. It's summertime, and a homeowner sets his thermostat to a desired room temperature -- say 78F. The thermostat measures the air temperature and compares it to the preset value. Over time, the hot air outside the house will elevate the temperature inside the house. When the temperature inside exceeds 78F, the thermostat sends a signal to the air conditioning unit. The air conditioning unit clicks on and cools the room. When the temperature in the room returns to 78F, another signal is sent to the air conditioner, which shuts off.

It's called a negative feedback loop because the result of a certain action (the air conditioning unit clicking on) inhibits further performance of that action. All negative feedback loops require a receptor, a control center and an effector. In the example above, the receptor is the thermometer that measures air temperature. The control center is the processor inside the thermostat. And the effector is the air conditioning unit.

Image courtesy Bill Harris Automated flight control systems work the same way. Let's consider the example of a pilot who has activated a single-axis autopilot - the so-called wing leveler we mentioned earlier. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. The pilot sets a control mode to maintain the wings in a level position. However, even in the smoothest air, a wing will eventually dip. Position sensors on the wing detect this deflection and send a signal to the autopilot computer. The autopilot computer processes the input data and determines that the wings are no longer level. The autopilot computer sends a signal to the servos that control the aircraft's ailerons. The signal is a very specific command telling the servo to make a precise adjustment. Each servo has a small electric motor fitted with a slip clutch that, through a bridle cable, grips the aileron cable. When the cable moves, the control surfaces move accordingly. As the ailerons are adjusted based on the input data, the wings move back toward level. The autopilot computer removes the command when the position sensor on the wing detects that the wings are once again level. The servos cease to apply pressure on the aileron cables.

This loop, shown above in the block diagram, works continuously, many times a second, much more quickly and smoothly than a human pilot could. Two- and three-axis autopilots obey the same principles, employing multiple processors that control multiple surfaces. Some airplanes even have autothrust computers to control engine thrust. Autopilot and autothrust systems can work together to perform very complex maneuvers. Using RC Airplane Servos Remote Control (RC) airplane servos, like the one to the left, reliably move to a desired angular position, given the appropriate input. The same servos are also intended to be used in RC cars, boats, and other models.

Increasingly, these servos are being applied in non-traditional ways. This is largely due to several attractive features:

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High Torque Accurate Positioning Easy Mounting Easy Control Economical

However, they do have their limitations. The best way to explore this is to get one and experiment with it.

Basic Function of Servos

This is a block diagram, illustrating the basic idea of the servo's function. The desired position is compared to the output position of the servo shaft. A compensator adjusts this signal, and sets the input to the motor. The motor is attached to a gearhead, so that the output is high torque, although at low speed. A potentiometer is attached to the output shaft to provide the feedback signal. Phase-locked loop phase-locked loop or phase lock loop (PLL) is a control system that tries to generate an output signal whose phase is related to the phase of the input "reference" signal. It is an electronic circuit consisting of a variable frequency oscillator and a phase detector. This circuit compares the phase of the input signal with the phase of the signal derived from its output oscillator and adjusts the frequency of its oscillator to keep the phases matched. The signal from the phase detector is used to control the oscillator in a feedback loop. Frequency is the derivative of phase. Keeping the input and output phase in lock step implies keeping the input and output frequencies in lock step. Consequently, a phase-locked loop can track an input frequency, or it can generate a frequency that is a multiple of the input frequency. The former property is used for demodulation, and the latter property is used for indirect frequency synthesis. Phase-locked loops are widely used in radio, telecommunications, computers and other electronic applications. They may generate stable frequencies, recover a signal from a noisy communication channel, or distribute clock timing pulses in digital logic designs such as microprocessors. Since a single integrated circuit can provide a complete phase-locked-loop building block, the technique is widely used in modern electronic devices, with output frequencies from a fraction of a hertz up to many gigahertz.

Practical analogies [edit] Automobile race analogy For a practical idea of what is going on, consider an auto race. There are many cars, and each of them wants to go around the track as fast as possible. Each lap corresponds to a complete cycle, and each car will complete dozens of laps per hour. The number of laps per hour (a speed) is a frequency, but the number of laps (a distance) corresponds to a phase. At one instant, car 3 may have gone 37.23 laps. During most of the race, each car is on its own and is trying to beat every other car on the course. However, if there is an accident, a pace car comes out to set a safe speed. None of the race cars are permitted to pass the pace car (or the race cars in front of them), but each of the race cars wants to stay as close to the pace car as it can. While it is on the track, the pace car is a reference, and the race cars become phase-locked loops. Each driver will measure the phase difference (a distance in laps) between him and the pace car. If the driver is far away, he will increase his engine speed to close the gap. If he's too close to the pace car, he will slow down. The result is all the race cars lock on to the phase of the pace car. The cars travel around the track in a tight group that is a small fraction of a lap. A bipolar (junction) transistor (BJT) is a three-terminal electronic device constructed of doped semiconductor material and may be used in amplifying or switching applications. Bipolar transistors are so named because their operation involves both electrons and holes. Charge flow in a BJT is due to bidirectional diffusion of charge carriers across a junction between two regions of different charge concentrations. This mode of operation is contrasted with unipolar transistors, such as field-effect transistors, in which only one carrier type is involved in charge flow due to drift. By design, most of the BJT collector current is due to the flow of charges injected from a high-concentration emitter into the base where they are minority carriers that diffuse toward the collector, and so BJTs are classified as minority-carrier devices. An NPN transistor can be considered as two diodes with a shared anode. In typical operation, the base-emitter junction is forward biased and the basecollector junction is reverse biased. In an NPN transistor, for example, when a positive voltage is applied to the baseemitter junction, the equilibrium between thermally generated carriers and the repelling electric field of the depletion region becomes unbalanced, allowing thermally excited electrons to inject into the base region. These electrons wander (or "diffuse") through the base from the region of high concentration near the emitter towards the region of low concentration near the collector. The electrons in the base are called minority carriers because the base is doped p-type which would make holes the majority carrier in the base. To minimize the percentage of carriers that recombine before reaching the collectorbase junction, the transistor's base region must be thin enough that carriers can diffuse across it in much less time than the semiconductor's minority carrier lifetime. In particular, the thickness of the base must be much less than the diffusion length of the electrons. The collectorbase junction is reverse-biased, and so little electron injection occurs from the collector to the base, but electrons that diffuse through the base towards the collector are swept into the collector by the electric field in the depletion region of the collectorbase junction. The thin shared base and asymmetric collectoremitter doping is what differentiates a bipolar transistor from two separate and oppositely biased diodes connected in series. Biasing: The DC voltages applied to a transistor in order to turn it on so that it can amplify the AC signal. The Three States of Operation Active or Linear Region Operation BaseEmitter junction is forward biased BaseCollector junction is reverse biased Cutoff Region Operation BaseEmitter junction is reverse biased Saturation Region Operation BaseEmitter junction is forward biased BaseCollector junction is forward biased