Abstract
Functional partitioning, redundancy structure, internal communications, and software modularization define the architecture of a digital automatic flight control system (DAFCS). Selection of a suitable system architecture for commercial transports involves such factors as the functional scope, growth provision and flexibility requirements, sensor interfaces, the aircraft's actuator and control surface redundancy, and the dispatch reliability requirements. Trade-offs concerning these various factors are discussed, and it is shown that a very versatile and almost universal DAFCS can be configured to meet the general and peculiar needs associated with each aircraft application. Specific results associated with this system's recent demonstration flights in the DC-10 aircraft, as well as examples from several other transport aircraft applications of the same DAFCS architecture, are used to illustrate the design concepts.

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