Flight control actuation rotary actuation product

Flight control actuation from Honeywell Aerospace is a family of electromechanical flight control actuators for aircraft flight surfaces, aimed at electric, hybrid and advanced air mobility platforms as well as conventional aircraft. In the category of rotary actuators it converts a flight control command into controlled movement of a control surface or linkage.

The maker describes the engineering direction as a move away from heavy, bulky hydraulic systems, with their leakage risk, toward electric, smart and self-monitoring systems. Honeywell designs, develops and produces electromechanical actuators that are smaller, lighter, more reliable and more cost-efficient than typical aerospace-grade actuators, with greater power density.

The architecture is described qualitatively. The actuators are built with a fail-passive architecture, sophisticated motor controls, dissimilarity and redundancy. For an integrator, fail-passive behaviour means that after a detected fault the actuator stops driving the surface instead of moving it in an uncontrolled way, and dissimilarity reduces the chance that a single design error affects all channels. The design supports high-integrity and high-availability actuation, in line with demanding aircraft certification requirements.

Integration is described at system level. When paired with Honeywell's fly-by-wire systems, the actuators form a fully integrated flight surface control offering, so the actuation and the flight control computers can be sourced from one supplier and verified together. For advanced air mobility airframers the maker stresses installed size, mass, power draw, flexibility while the aircraft is in development and short delivery lead times.

Markets served are advanced air mobility, air transport and regional aircraft, business and general aviation, and defense. The maker lists advanced air mobility and all-electric and hybrid platforms as a specific focus.