Digital Twin Enabled Flight Control System Testing: Design, Development, and Implementation

Abstract

Flight control system testing (FCST) is one of the most important process to check whether flight control surfaces can operate properly according to commands during aircraft assembly. Traditional testing method relies heavily on manual labor, leading to low efficiency and inconsistent quality. In this paper, we apply digital twin (DT) technology to the FCST process for the first time. We firstly design an architecture of DT-enabled FCST including four layers to support further development. Then, we present a triangular mesh alignment-based angle measurement (TMA-AM) algorithm to efficiently collect deflection angle data for DT-enabled FCST. Extensive experiments conducted on a aircraft wing subassembly platform show that the TMA-AM algorithm achieves an average angular measurement error of less than 0.1°, outperforming existing methods. Moreover, we develop a virtual experimental platform named DT-FCST aligned with a real aircraft wing subassembly platform. In addition, TMA-AM algorithm is integrated with the DT-FCST platform. By integrating real-time data from the cockpit, real-time physical-virtual interaction of aircraft control sticks and flight control surfaces are achieved, ensuring consistency between physical and virtual movements. The integration of DT technology with the TMA-AM algorithm enables real-time synchronization, monitoring, and unified data management, significantly enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of the FCST. Note to Practitioners—To address the inefficiencies and low monitoring quality associated with traditional manual testing methods in flight control system testing (FCST), we firstly introduce digital twin (DT) technology to this process. To support effective and accurate measurement during the FCST, we propose a vision-based method tailored to accurately measure deflection angles of flight control surfaces. This method replaces manual measurements with a non-contact approach, significantly improving measurement accuracy and efficiency. We provide a detailed description of the construction process of the DT-FCST platform including requirement analysis, DT model construction, and on-site experiments. This DT-based approach achieves real-time synchronization between virtual and physical testing processes, enhancing monitoring quality and overall testing effectiveness. Specifically, it can achieve a 90% reduction in the number of operators and shorten the single testing time to 16.7% of the traditional testing method.