DE102022000758A1 - Protection system for aircraft - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a protection system for aircraft (1), having one or more electronic control devices (4) with microprocessors with at least one signal input and one or more activation means, the activation means (2, 3, 5, 7) being connected to the signal input of the electronic Control unit can be linked to microprocessors and with appropriate evaluation of the sensor signals, a protection system (2, 3, 5, 7) for an aircraft is triggered, the electronic computing unit (4) automatically triggering the protection system (2, 3, 5, 7). .This active protection system is suitable for deploying a parachute in the event of an aircraft failure and forming a protective cushion of air bags around the aircraft, whereby the parachute has the function of slowing down the fall and aligning the aircraft accordingly so that the function of the air bags on the lower side of the aircraft to reduce the impact of the impact can be effectively deployed. In one embodiment, openings are integrated in the air bags, which have the function of generating a recoil before impact with the ground or with an object and thus also reduce the force of the impact and the effects of the aircraft crashing. In a further embodiment, a lighter-than-air gas (e.g. helium or hydrogen) is filled very quickly into a balloon in order to generate appropriate buoyancy and thus prevent the aircraft from crashing. The invention further relates to a method, a use of a protection system according to the invention and an aircraft with at least one protection system according to the invention.

Description

problem

There are currently more and more personal aircraft (also called passenger drones) and electrically operated aircraft for cargo or goods transport, which are operated with 4, 8, 16, 32 or n rotors, are being developed ( 1 , Rotor (1)). Examples of autonomously flying personal aircraft are e.g. EHANG 184 (8 or 16 rotors, electric, 30km range, 130km/h maximum speed of the aircraft), Hoversurf Skorpion 3 (design similar to a flying motorcycle with 4 rotors, open at the top), IFO (rotors around occupant capsule, 8 rotors side by side), Project Zero (2 rotors, purely electric, company Augusta Westland), Lilium (design similar to a car with wings and rotors integrated into the wings) or Volocopter VC200 (18 rotors, side by side, open at the top, maximum 2 people, 30 min. flight time, fully electric), Surefly (8 rotors in a quadrocopter arrangement, energy production by driving a generator with a petrol-burning engine), Airbus Popup (aircraft and car module system made up of 3 modules: Flight module, cabin module, chassis module - combination of flight module and cabin module for flight use, combination of cabin module and chassis module for driving in a car, purely electric, max. 2 people). The aircraft are controlled either fully automatically or by the pilot.

The problem now is that aircraft can crash in the event of an error, e.g. if mechanical parts such as the rotors or electromechanical parts such as the rotor motors or the battery or the control units fail (due to system, hardware or software errors). The resulting dangers are well known: plane crashes can result in serious or even fatal injuries to the occupants of the plane and/or damage to the aircraft's cargo.

Solution

The invention consists in the combined parachute and airbag system described here to protect the occupants, the aircraft or the cargo of the aircraft, such that on the basis of the all-round vision sensors (e.g. video, radar, ultrasound, lidar) and/or other sensors (e.g Altimeter, GPS, ...) ( 2 , distance sensors (4), altimeter, GPS (4)) in the event of a fall, the fall is detected and the protection systems ( 2 , parachute system (3, 7) and airbag system (2, 5, 6) are triggered accordingly, with the parachute system aligning and stabilizing the aircraft in such a way that the airbags arranged below the aircraft, which in turn are ignited shortly before impact with the ground create a corresponding protective effect for occupants, cargo and the environment of the aircraft.

In a further embodiment, the parachute module is optionally replaced or supplemented with a lighter-than-air balloon module (9), whereby in the event of deployment (e.g. failure of the rotors) the balloon (8) very quickly with a lighter-than-air - Gas (e.g. helium or hydrogen) is filled in such a way that buoyancy is generated in order to prevent a fall and/or to reduce the consequences of a fall.

In a further embodiment, the airbags are provided with corresponding openings through which the air can escape via these openings when the airbags are ignited and thus, in addition to the protective effect of the airbag, in the event of an impact, a recoil is generated which reduces the force of the impact.

In this way, serious injury or death or damage to the cargo of the aircraft can be prevented and/or reduced in the best possible way. Another advantage of the system described is that in the event that the aircraft would fall on a person or an object, injury to the person or damage to the object can be reduced or prevented, i.e. not only the occupant or the load of the protected aircraft, but also people or objects that the crashing aircraft could fall on.

system description

The invention relates to a protection system for an aircraft, having one or more electronic control units (4) with microprocessors having at least one signal input and one or more activation means, the activation means (2, 3, 5, 6, 7) being connected to the signal input of the electronic The control unit can be connected to microprocessors and the protective systems (2, 3, 5, 6, 7) for an aircraft are triggered when the sensor signals are evaluated accordingly, with the electronic processing unit (4) automatically triggering the protective systems (2, 3, 5, 6 , 7) triggers.

This active protection system is suitable for deploying a parachute in the event of a fault in the aircraft and for forming a protective shell of airbags without openings (5) around the aircraft and/or in one embodiment of airbags (5) with openings (6) around the aircraft, with the function of the airbags is to reduce the force of the impact, and the openings in the airbags have the function of cushioning the impact by expelling air from the cushion and recoil to generate and thus also to dampen the force of the impact.

The invention also relates to a method, a use of a protection system according to the invention and an aircraft with at least one protection system according to the invention.

The protection system for aircraft is designed in such a way that in the event of a failure of the aircraft providing lift, e.g. jets or rotors - powered electrically or with a combustion engine - or helium/hydrogen-filled or lighter than air-gas balloons or other aircraft generating lift, the crash is recognized by appropriate sensors, e.g. an electronic control unit (4) with an altimeter or distance-measuring sensors, e.g. radar sensors, which measure the distance to the ground and can detect a fall from the acceleration or approach to the ground and when the distance falls below or exceeds a specified value the protection systems (2,3, 5, 6, 7) trigger when a fixed acceleration value is reached.

In another embodiment, after the aircraft crashes and the airbags are deployed, an emergency signal is sent to the air traffic control center with information on the crash site (GPS data, (4)), so that the aircraft and/or the occupants can then be quickly recovered.

Installation of the system

The parachute protection system is installed on top of the aircraft in such a way that if it is triggered during a crash, it automatically shoots out the parachute so that it automatically unfolds and generates a corresponding lift. Shortly before ground contact, the airbag protection system attached to the ground is ignited in a second step, so that the airbags deploy and thus reduce an impact.

The distance to the ground is continuously measured with distance sensors (4) and the fall acceleration is determined. In the event of a sudden increase in the fall acceleration and rapid reduction in the distance to the ground, a possible fall is recognized. The distance sensors are connected to a computing unit (4), which in turn contains a capacitor so that the parachute and airbag protection function is guaranteed in the event of a power failure.

Benefits of the system

The advantages of the system are that the consequences of the force of the impact, e.g. Injuries and fatalities from aircraft crashes can be reduced or reduced and/or that the corresponding cargo of the aircraft is protected from destruction in the event of a crash and that objects and people on which the crashing aircraft falls are protected from damage.

Reference List

1

aircraft

2

Airbag protection module

3

Parachute open

4

Control unit with distance sensors

5

Airbag in the open state

6

openings in the airbag

7

Parachute Protection Module

8th

Lighter-than-air gas balloon when inflated

9

Lighter-than-air gas balloon protection module

Claims (8)

Protection system for aircraft, characterized in that it consists of three modules, a crash-sensing module, which calculates two protection-system triggering signals in the event of a crash from sensor data, and a protection-system parachute module, which generates a parachute based on the one triggering signal, whereby the parachute is thrown out and thus unfolds its lifting effect and a protective system airbag module that uses the second protective system triggering signal before impact with the ground or an object in order to trigger the protective system, i.e. to to ignite propellant charges of the airbags enveloping the occupants and/or the cargo and/or the aircraft, the airbags being inflated by the propellant ignition. aircraft protection system claim 1 , characterized in that the airbag module consists of a housing in which the folded airbag is located, as well as an electronic control unit, which triggers the propellant ignition with which the airbag is filled with air, and the squib with the explosive propellant . aircraft protection system claim 1 , characterized in that the parachute module is optionally replaced or supplemented with a lighter-than-air balloon module (9), in which case the balloon (8) is very quickly inflated with a lighter-than-air gas (e.g. helium or hydrogen) is filled in such a way that buoyancy is generated, to prevent a crash and/or reduce the consequences of a crash and to align the aircraft in such a way that the airbag module can develop its protective effect accordingly. aircraft protection system claim 1 , 2 and claim 3 , characterized in that after the airbags have been ignited, an automatic emergency call is sent to a control center by mobile radio signal, including a GPS signal with information about the location of the crashed aircraft. aircraft protection system claim 1 , 2 and claim 3 , characterized in that the airbags around the aircraft have openings through which the air can escape after inflation of the airbags and thus create a recoil effect that reduces the force of impact with the ground or objects. aircraft protection system claim 1 , 2 and claim 3 , characterized in that the crash-sensing module, with one or more electronic control units (4) with microprocessors with at least one signal input and one or more activation means, wherein the activation means (2, 3, 5, 6, 7) with the Let the signal input of the electronic control unit be connected to microprocessors and, when the sensor signals are evaluated accordingly, protective systems (2, 3, 5, 6, 7) for an aircraft are triggered, with the electronic processing unit (4) triggering automatic triggering of the protective systems (2, 3, 5 , 6, 7) triggers. aircraft protection system claim 1 ,2 and claim 3 , characterized in that the distance measurement is carried out using radar sensors, video sensors, lidar sensors, ultrasonic sensors and/or height measurement sensors, acceleration sensors and/or GPS sensors. aircraft protection system claim 1 , 2 , claim 3 and claim 4 , characterized in that the airbags contain ducts through which part of the air generated by the propellant ignition is directed to generate recoil before impact with the ground and another part of the air generated by the propellant ignition is directed into the airbags.

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