CN113104214A

CN113104214A - An aerial wingtip docking/separating mechanism

Info

Publication number: CN113104214A
Application number: CN202110549358.XA
Authority: CN
Inventors: 谢长川; 安朝; 孟杨; 何景武; 杨超
Original assignee: Beihang University
Current assignee: Beihang University
Priority date: 2021-05-20
Filing date: 2021-05-20
Publication date: 2021-07-13

Abstract

Aiming at the problems of docking two or more aircrafts in the air to improve the cruising efficiency or separating them in the air to complete their respective sub-tasks, the present invention proposes a mechanism system that can realize the docking/separating function of the wingtips in the air, which takes into account the simple structure, Three characteristics of reliability and economy. The implementation is to install a docking device on the wing tip ribs of the two aircraft to be docked. Use the telescopic device to control the docking point somewhere outside the wingtip, thereby reducing the interference of the wingtip vortex; at the same time, use the capture and locking device to capture and lock the extended docking spear; finally use the telescopic device to pull the two aircraft closer together , to complete the wingtip docking process. The separation process is the opposite, using the telescopic device to push the two aircraft apart; using the capture and locking device to unlock the docking spear; after the aircraft on one side of the capture and locking device has flown away, the aircraft on the other side retracts the docking spear. Complete the separation process. The present invention can solve the problem of the docking or separation of the wingtips of the aircraft, especially the unmanned aerial vehicle, in the air to a greater extent. The device mechanism is simple and reliable, and the modification of the wing structure is small when the existing aircraft is retrofitted. Therefore, the device has good adaptability, and has certain application and promotion in the aviation field and related fields.

Description

Aerial wingtip butt joint/separation mechanism

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of butt joint/separation of wingtips between manned or unmanned planes in the air, in particular to a wingtip butt joint/separation mechanism system which is arranged at the wingtips and enables two or more planes to realize butt joint in the air.

Background

1. Because of the limitations of aeroelastic, structural, manufacturing costs and even airport conditions, individual aircraft typically have a span that is controlled to a certain extent. The larger the aspect ratio of the airplane is, the larger the lift-drag ratio of the airplane is, the better the cruising performance is, and the longer the voyage and the endurance time are.

2. At present, in order to increase the aspect ratio, many methods are adopted. One of the wings is a wing with a large aspect ratio or an ultra-large aspect ratio. The high-aspect-ratio or super-high-aspect-ratio airplane has great advantages in the aspect of high-altitude long-endurance. The excellent cruising efficiency and high altitude long endurance make it highly desirable. However, there are drawbacks to this type of aircraft with very large aspect ratios. Typically, the manufacturing process is complicated and costly due to the large span. Moreover, the aircraft has high requirements on the field and the weather during taking off and landing, and the smaller roll angle is easy to cause damage and even destroy when the wing tip touches the ground. Meanwhile, due to the lower structural strength and the larger size, the machine body is easy to disintegrate when encountering airflow. The American unmanned aerial vehicle named 'Sunshen' is just disintegrated and crashed when encountering occasional turbulence.

3. Such a solution also exists in the method of increasing the aspect ratio to obtain good cruising performance. A plurality of airplanes with medium aspect ratio take off from the ground independently, and fly integrally after butt joint is completed in the air, so that the aspect ratio of the airplane is effectively increased. When landing, a plurality of airplanes of the whole airplane are separated in the air, so that successive independent landing is realized. This approach avoids structural, tooling, manufacturing costs and airport limitations at the same time. In addition, only individual damaged airplanes need to be repaired and maintained during maintenance, so that the maintenance cost and the risk can be reduced, and the overall operation cannot be influenced during maintenance.

4. One of the key technologies for aerial docking/undocking to increase aspect ratio solutions is a robust docking/undocking device. Patent CN 102658866A has designed a device of connecting on ground, aerial separation to the problem such as single unmanned aerial vehicle load short-range and can't accomplish the task after the monomer aircraft is impaired. Unmanned planes equipped with such devices cannot complete aerial docking, and therefore the detached aircraft cannot return to the form of docked flight after completing the mission.

5. Patent CN 103963972B proposes a method of aerial wingtip docking for wingtip connection/towing technology. The method has high requirement on the airplane attitude control precision in the butt joint process, and meanwhile, the butt joint mechanism has certain requirement on the structure of the outer end of the wing.

Aiming at the problems that the cruise efficiency is improved through the butt joint of wing tips, the range is increased, and the respective subtasks are flexibly and independently completed through separation, a method which is simple in structure, reliable and economical and takes the effect of the three is not provided at present.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention provides a mechanism system capable of realizing a wing tip docking/separating function in the air, aiming at the problems that two or more airplanes are docked in the air to improve the cruising efficiency or are separated in the air to respectively complete subtasks and the like. And the invention designs the control logic part of the wingtip docking/detaching mechanism system. Thereby providing a solution for aerial tip docking/undocking.

An aerial wingtip docking/undocking mechanism system comprising the following:

a set of butt joint/separation mechanical device with simple structure and reliability;

a set of control logics for realizing safe and effective control of butt joint/separation, namely the principle of related sensor arrangement.

The innovation of the invention is as follows: firstly, the docking position is controlled to be at a position of about one chord length outside the wingtip by using the telescopic device, so that unstable influences such as shaking and the like caused by the wingtip vortex in the docking process are avoided to a great extent. Meanwhile, the butt joint point is controlled at a distance outside the wingtip, so that the danger that the wingtip is collided when two airplanes are in butt joint is reduced, and the safety of the butt joint process is improved. In addition, one side of the butt joint mechanism only needs to arrange the butt joint component on the reinforcing wing rib and then connect the reinforcing wing rib with the wing tip. The modular design is formed, damage to the outer section of the wing is reduced, and the modular design can be efficiently installed on the existing airplane. The other side of the docking mechanism, when mounted to the wing tip of an aircraft, only affects the wing to the extent of about two ribs at the extreme end. In a word, when the butt joint/separation device is additionally arranged on the existing airplane, the influence on the outer end structure of the wing of the original airplane is small. Therefore, the invention has better universality and wider adaptability.

Drawings

The drawings herein are provided to provide an intuitive understanding of the invention and constitute a part of this application, and the illustrative embodiments and descriptions thereof are provided to explain the invention and not to limit the invention.

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a docking mechanism prior to docking;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of the docking spear extended in preparation for docking;

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of the docking spear docking with the right stationary base;

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of the right docking mechanism completing the locking of the docking spear;

fig. 5 is a schematic view of the docking mechanism completing the docking.

Detailed Description

The wingtip docking/detaching device comprises two parts, namely a telescopic device and a capturing and locking device.

The telescopic device is arranged on the left wing panel of the figure 1, namely (r) ((r) () in the figure 1) three components. The component (I) is a driving part and provides linear motion along the wingspan direction; the component (II) is a supporting part; the component III is a butt joint spear, provides support for the butt joint spear and provides a certain slide rail function for the straight line motion of the butt joint spear along the wingspan direction. When the telescopic motion is carried out, the driving part drives the docking spear arranged on the support to do linear motion along the wingspan direction.

The catching and locking device is arranged at the right side wing section of fig. 1, namely, the parts of ((c), ((c)) and ((c)), ((c)) of fig. 1. Wherein, the component (IV) is a fixed base; the component is a driving part; the component (c) is a moving base; and the sliding groove is positioned on the right side rib. When the capturing and locking device works, the driving part drives the moving base (c) to move back and forth along the sliding groove (c) on the rib, so that the docking spearhead between the fixed base (c) and the moving base (c) is captured, and the docking spearhead is locked by the self-locking of the driving device.

Method for butt joint of wing tips

During air docking, two airplanes keep a certain distance from left to right and keep flying at approximately the same height and front-back position. The extension device extends the docking spear in the positional relationship shown in fig. 1 as previously described. At this time, the capturing and locking device is started, the movable base moves forwards along the sliding groove under the driving of the driving part, the extending butt spearhead is restrained between the two bases, and locking is achieved through self-locking. The process is shown in fig. 2, 3 and 4. After the capturing and locking, the driving part on the left side drives the docking spear to move leftwards along the wingspan direction, and the wing on the left side (namely, a left airplane) is pulled close, so that the integral flying is realized. The whole process is shown in fig. 1, fig. 2, fig. 3, fig. 4 and fig. 5.

Method of wingtip separation

When the wingtip separation is carried out, the whole process is the reverse process of the wingtip butt joint process, namely, the wingtip butt joint process is carried out by the aid of the wingtip separation method from the drawings of 5-4-3. When the airplane flies to the right and the front relative to the left in the directions from fig. 4 to fig. 3, the separation can be realized. Finally, the docking spear in the state of fig. 1 is retracted to complete the entire separation process.

Control logic for docking and undocking processes

And after a docking instruction is sent, measuring and calculating the distance between the end ribs on two sides of the docking part of the two airplanes, and controlling the airplanes to enable the distance to be smaller than the extending length of the docking spear and ensure that the two airplanes keep a certain safety distance. Then, whether the docking spearhead is positioned between the two bases is detected by the laser sensors disposed on the moving base (c) and the fixed base (c). If the two bases are positioned between the two bases, the capturing and locking device is started to tightly lock the two bases. If the docking spear is not positioned between the two bases, the docking spear enters between the two bases by adjusting the attitude of the airplane. When the clamping force of the base and the butt joint spear is detected to be in a set range through the force sensor positioned on the base, the telescopic device can be started to pull the two airplanes close, and after the distance between the end ribs on the two sides reaches a set value, the butt joint of the wing tips in the air is completed.

When a separation instruction is sent out, the telescopic device is started immediately to enable the end ribs on the two sides to reach the maximum extending distance, and the maximum extending distance is monitored and determined by the driving part I. Then, the catching and locking device is activated to retreat the movable base to the maximum distance, and the maximum distance is determined by the driving part. The airplane arranged on one side of the base flies outwards relative to the other airplane according to a set route, and after the two airplanes are detected to reach a safe distance, the docking spears are retracted, so that the separation process is completed.

The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention and is not intended to limit the present invention, and various modifications and changes may be made by those skilled in the art. Any modification, equivalent replacement, or improvement made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. An aerial wingtip docking/separating mechanism is characterized in that comprising:

butt spears ③ provided on a first wing segment,

The first driving part ① arranged on the first wing segment is used to drive the docking lance ③ to perform linear movement along the span direction;

The support part ② provided on the first wing segment is used to provide support for the docking spear and act as a sliding rail for the linear movement of the docking spear along the wingspan direction,

a fixed base ④ arranged on a second wing segment;

a second driving part ⑤ arranged on the second wing segment;

The mobile base ⑥ arranged on the second wing segment;

The chute ⑦ provided on the rib of the second wing segment;

The control logic applied to this set of docking/detaching mechanisms.

Wherein, when the capturing and locking are performed, the second driving part ⑤ drives the moving base ⑥ to move back and forth along the chute ⑦, so as to capture the docking spear moving between the fixed base ④ and the moving base ⑥, and The self-locking of the second driving device is used to realize the locking of the butt spearhead.

2. The docking process of the wingtip according to patent claim 1 is divided into a docking strategy of extending-capturing-locking three parts, it is characterized in that, there are three processes with obvious differences in the docking process, namely extending, capturing, locked, and the three processes occur in sequence. Different combination design schemes can be derived by simply designing each step.

3. The extension mechanism formed by the linear motion device installed inside the outer section of the wing according to patent claim 1, is characterized in that, the extension mechanism is arranged along the direction of the wing longitudinal beam, and is usually fixed on the beam; The driving part includes but is not limited to linear driving methods such as lead screw driving, electric push rod driving, and hydraulic driving.

4. The mechanism according to patent claim 1 that designs the base into a movable form with capturing and locking functions, characterized in that the opening and closing of the base is realized through the movement of the base, thereby realizing the capture and locking of the docking spear. Locking; similarly, the driving part of the mobile base includes, but is not limited to, the driving part, including but not limited to linear driving methods such as screw drive, electric push rod drive, and hydraulic drive.

5. the control logic applied to this set of docking/separating mechanism according to patent claim 1, it is characterized in that, when this set of control logic together with patent claim 2 to the wingtip docking together, the flight of the aircraft has made guidance and requirements, The requirements for the accuracy of the front and rear position of the aircraft during docking are reduced; at the same time, this set of control logic controls the operating conditions and sequence of the entire set of devices.