20.01.2013 Views

The Art of the Helicopter John Watkinson - Karatunov.net

The Art of the Helicopter John Watkinson - Karatunov.net

The Art of the Helicopter John Watkinson - Karatunov.net

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

378 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Art</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Helicopter</strong><br />

control channels. <strong>The</strong>se will be lateral cyclic, fore-and-aft cyclic, collective and tail<br />

rotor. Subsidiary controls will be needed to start <strong>the</strong> engine and rotors and to adjust<br />

RRPM.<br />

In an analog or pulse width modulation (PWM) system, each control is connected<br />

to a transducer such as a potentiometer or LVDT (see Chapter 7) that controls <strong>the</strong><br />

length <strong>of</strong> a pulse. <strong>The</strong>re will be one pulse for each control channel, followed by a reset<br />

or synchronizing pulse. <strong>The</strong> pulse signal is used to amplitude or frequency modulate a<br />

carrier wave in a radio transmitter. A receiver tuned to <strong>the</strong> transmitter will be able to<br />

demodulate <strong>the</strong> carrier signal and recover <strong>the</strong> pulse train. <strong>The</strong> reset pulse sets a pulse<br />

counter to zero. Each control pulse is <strong>the</strong>n counted so that each pulse is routed to <strong>the</strong><br />

correct channel.<br />

A PWM system is analog because <strong>the</strong> infinitely variable position <strong>of</strong> a control stick<br />

results in an infinitely variable pulse length. In practical systems <strong>the</strong> resolution <strong>of</strong><br />

<strong>the</strong> system may be reduced because <strong>of</strong> noise in <strong>the</strong> radio link. <strong>The</strong> digital or PCM<br />

(pulse code modulation) system converts <strong>the</strong> position <strong>of</strong> each control stick to a binary<br />

number <strong>of</strong> fixed word length. In an eight-bit system, <strong>the</strong>re can be 256 different numbers.<br />

<strong>The</strong> binary numbers from <strong>the</strong> various control channels are multiplexed into a single<br />

transmission in which <strong>the</strong> number corresponding to each channel has a fixed place in<br />

<strong>the</strong> sequence. <strong>The</strong> start <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> sequence is denoted by a fixed synchronizing pattern.

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!