Goodrich Pursues "Virtual" Engine Controller

Goodrich is developing advanced programming for the U.S. Army aimed allowing a computer model to manage power on an engine in flight, Rotor & Wing has learned at the Farnborough Air Show. The effort takes advantage of improved data storage and computing capability. Essentially, Goodrich loads an analytical model of the engine in the memory of the full-authority digital engine controller (fadec) it builds for that engine. That model would be updated continually with actual performance data from the real engine, and would evolve over time to be a virtual version of that engine. Should one or more of the 150 or so streams of performance data that the fadec uses to manage power from the engine drop out, the fadec could replace it with data from the model to prevent that failure from interrupting an aircraft mission. Goodrich is shooting to deliver the new software “build” for fadecs for Honeywell T55-L-714s powering Boeing CH-47F Chinooks to the U.S. Army by the end of the year.