Aerospace Actuators

Actuators in aerospace systems are critical components used to control various systems and mechanisms within aircraft and spacecraft. Such actuators convert energy (typically electrical, hydraulic, or pneumatic) into mechanical motion, enabling the precise control of these flight vehicles. Aerospace actuators have unique requirements for their operation in challenging environments, including requirements to operate under high pressures and/or under a vacuum, extremes of high temperatures and/or low temperatures, and the ability to withstand vibration as well as shock. The design of aerospace actuators requires meticulous attention to material properties, failure modes, and operational requirements, to ensure the reliability and safety of these flight systems, while simultaneously minimizing the weights of actuation systems to maximize vehicle payload.

In the aeronautical field, flight vehicles range from large jets to small unmanned air systems (UASs), as well as vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft unique actuation requirements. Actuators for distributed actuation are of particular interest, such as electro-hydrostatic actuators (EHAs), which aim to replace centralized hydraulic systems with self-contained and localized direct-drive actuation systems. Actuation strategies for aircraft morphing, such as piezoelectric or shape memory alloy actuation strategies, are also of particular interest.

In the astronautical field, flight vehicles range from launch platforms for both crew and cargo, hypersonic vehicles, satellites, and interplanetary vehicles. Actuation systems specifically developed for use in space are important, especially when considering temperature and vacuum requirements. There is also a critical need for miniaturization to achieve the performance requirements of active optics, precise instruments for remote sensing from space, robotic missions, micro-satellites, and cubesats.

This Section is devoted to coverage of advanced actuators and their associated power delivery, control systems, reliability, and impacts on performance for aircraft and spacecraft, including their systems and sub-systems.

Aim

This Section will focus on actuator component and enabling technologies, as well as complete subsystems incorporating system engineering, for both endoatmospheric and exoatmospheric flight vehicles. Actuator classes range from for those for small vehicles, such as microsats, cubesats, or microdrones, to those for vehicles as large as jumbo jets, helicopters, rockets, and orbital spacecraft. Articles covering all aspects of actuation systems for aerospace vehicles are sought, including, but not limited to, primary and secondary flight control, morphing aircraft, landing systems, active flutter suppression, vibration mitigation, launch load accommodation, active crashworthiness, mission package deployment, and staging actuators. Advanced approaches using pneumatics, electrostatics, electrohydrostatic, modern ultra-high-pressure hydraulics, rare-earth rotary and linear motors, shape memory alloys, and piezoelectric as well as other classes of adaptive materials are of interest.

Scope

Topics addressed in this section include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Aircraft actuators.
• Spacecraft actuators.
• Flight control.
• High-lift devices.
• Compliant mechanisms.
• Manufacturing, integration, and maintenance.
• Safety and reliability.
• Hydraulic, electrohydraulic, and electrohydrostatic actuators.
• Smart material actuators: piezoelectric, shape memory alloy, magnetostrictive alloys, magnetorheological and electrorheological fluids, and others.