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Understanding Helicopter Automatic

Flight Control Systems (AFCS)
SUN, 06/01/2014 - 12:00

Historically, flying a helicopter has always been a challenge. From its

beginnings some 70 years ago, flying a helicopter required a high degree of
skill and constant attention. Even in the best of weather, in broad daylight,
lacking either or both could be catastrophic. For all practical purposes, night
flight and instrument flight were impossibilities. Not any longer. Since that time,
vast improvements in basic helicopter design and avionics have occurred,
making even single-pilot instrument flight rules (SPIFR) a reality while realizing
major benefits, including greatly increased safety and expanded mission
utilization of the helicopter. Automatic flight control systems for helicopters
have made these things possible.

In today’s market, a widening array of systems is available for many

helicopters currently in production. These systems might be simple, hands-on
visual flight rules (VFR) systems or they might be highly sophisticated,
combining stability augmentation, autopilot/yaw damper and flight director
functions into an automatic flight control system capable of a hands-off mark-
on-target approach to hover. These advanced systems rival anything offered in
the fixed-wing world. As usual there are a number of acronyms such as AFCS,
DFCS (digital flight control system), DFGS (digital flight guidance system).
Regardless of the acronym, most of these systems do pretty much the same
things. With the growing application of helicopter AFCS, a fundamental
understanding of these systems is now required in order to maintain them in
airworthy condition.

Fixed Wing Versus Helicopter Flight Control

Comparing the functionality of wings versus rotor blades, we see that wings
produce lift, while rotor blades produce lift, thrust and torque.

In comparing a rudder to a tail rotor, the tail rotor opposes main rotor torque.
Both the rudder and tail rotor provide aircraft directional control and both are
used in yaw damping and turn coordination.

Most fixed-wing aircraft are inherently stable. Place the airplane in the desired
position/attitude, take your hands off the control column and it will fairly well
stay there. The same cannot be said of helicopters. They are inherently
unstable flying platforms. Helicopter pilots are taught from day one not to take
their hands off the controls (cyclic, collective and pedals). This is sometimes a
problem for pilots transitioning to top tier, sophisticated helicopters where
hands-off flying is the norm.

Fixed-Wing Versus Helicopter Power

In fixed-wing aircraft, power is controlled by the throttles (aka “power levers” in

turbines), and an increase in power yields an increase in airspeed.
In a helicopter, power is controlled by the collective (aka “the fourth axis”), and
an increase in power yields an increase in altitude.

Helicopter AFCS

In order to better understand what autopilots/yaw dampers, flight director

systems and stability augmentation system (SAS) are supposed to do, let’s
define their functions and take away some of the mystery surrounding them.
Since the flight director system can usually be flown separately from the
autopilot/yaw damper or coupled to it, let’s start with it. What follows is general
in nature and not tied to a specific helicopter model or avionics manufacturer.

Flight Director (FD): The flight director provides the pilot and/or autopilot with
computed lateral and vertical steering commands to fly the helicopter along a
desired lateral and vertical flight path. Think of it as the pilot’s navigation tool
box. Just as there are different parts or segments to each flight (takeoff, climb,
cruise, descent, approach and landing), the FD has different lateral and vertical
modes the pilot can use in each of these segments. The flight director steering
commands are presented on the lateral and vertical command bars on the
ADI/EADI.

The flight director is divided into four basic parts

• Sensors (raw data)

• Computer

• Controller (mode selector)

• Loads (command bars and autopilot)

The sensors provide the raw data to be processed by the computer. The flight
director mode selector (controller) tells the computer which raw data to use,
depending on pilot mode preference. The computer processes the raw data
and gain scales the information to be displayed on the ADI/EADI command
bars and/or to the autopilot.

For the flight director to compute a steering command, the following has to be
considered:

• What is the pilot’s desired helicopter lateral and vertical navigation

position?
 • What is the helicopters actual lateral and vertical navigation position?

• If there is a difference between the desired and actual position, the FD

produces a command to correct for the difference and control the speed at
which the correction takes place.

Autopilot (AP): As complex as some of today’s autopilot systems have

become, they all can be narrowed down to providing at least one main function
— stability. In essence, the autopilot takes care of the routine repetitive tasks
and allows the pilot the ability to concentrate on other flight concerns.

Today’s helicopter autopilots can be three-axis or four-axis systems. A three-

axis system provides pitch, roll and yaw axis stabilization around the pilot’s
desired attitude and heading reference. In a four-axis system there is also a
collective axis, where the autopilot provides collective (i.e., power) control.
These systems are considered to be limited authority systems in that for short-
term external disturbances, the cyclic control does not change position. For
long-term disturbances (i.e., change in CG or fuel burn), the cyclic control is
allowed to move to a new position that extends the authority of the autopilot.

To accomplish this, the autopilot system must detect changes in helicopter

attitude and respond to those changes more quickly and smoothly than its
human counterpart.
For an autopilot to maintain this stability, it must:

• Know the pilot’s desired helicopter attitude

• Know the actual helicopter attitude

• Compare the two

• If there is a difference (i.e., an error):

• Correct for the difference (error) and

• Control the speed of the correction.

What is needed for both autopilots and flight directors to do their jobs is almost
identical. The difference lies in what data the two systems are using. In the
flight director it is navigation position data, and in the autopilot/yaw damper it is
helicopter pitch and roll attitude.

Yaw Damper

The yaw damper damps or reduces the rolling and yawing oscillations due to
the aircraft’s tendency to Dutch roll. Dutch roll is a type of aircraft motion
consisting of an out-of-phase combination of roll/yaw “tail-wagging” and
rocking from side to side. The yaw damper computes servo commands based
on sensor input data only. It supplies yaw rate damping and makes no input or
control to the flight director. It also helps turn coordination through the
autopilot.

In some systems, the yaw damper can be engaged without the autopilot, but
this is unusual. Servo position reference is synchronized to zero at
engagement and is constantly washed out to ensure that steady state
rudder/tail rotor forces are zero.

Stability Augmentation System (SAS)

When the SAS mode is engaged, it supplies short-term attitude and attitude
rate stabilization for use in hands-on flying. It is referred to as an SAS because
it stabilizes the helicopter against outside disturbances, and augments or helps
pilot cyclic control input. The SAS mode is designed so that pilot controlled
motions (pitch and roll) are enhanced while helicopter motions caused by
outside disturbances are counteracted. This mode of operation improves basic
helicopter handling qualities.

When helicopter motion (a wind gust) is detected, a stabilizing control signal

proportional to the amplitude and rate of the motion is generated in the AFCS
computer and routed to the appropriate actuators. SAS is generally used
during low and slow maneuvering where the pilot might be making constant
attitude changes in preparation for landing. By design, SAS is to be flown
hands on, and depending on the manufacturer of the SAS, flight director
modes might or might not be flown while SAS is engaged.

Control Surface Actuation

When the pilot is flying the helicopter manually, his or her muscles move the
cyclic, collective and the pedals through a series of cables, bellcranks, linkages
and either an electromechanical or hydraulic powerpack that provides an input
command to the main and/or tail rotors.

With the AFCS engaged, servos (either rotary or linear actuators) are
connected in parallel or series to the cables, linkages and bellcranks, and
provide the input to the powerpack to drive the main and tail rotors.

While the majority of fixed-wing systems with AFCS use a parallel rotary servo
control system, today’s helicopters with AFCS typically use a series linear
actuator control system. If a collective axis is employed, it is typically controlled
by a rotary servo. The linear actuators are usually installed in tubes called a
control rod assembly.

Above is a simplified illustration of a cyclic (pitch and roll) control system with
dual AFCS linear actuators. The cyclic is held is position by a force gradient
spring inside an artificial feel and trim unit (aka a rotary trim servo). This is
called a fly-through system in that the pilot still has full cyclic control regardless
of autopilot or SAS operation. When the autopilot is flying the aircraft (with or
without flight director), the linear actuators extend and retract as required to
maintain the desired attitude during hands-off operation. As previously stated,
the stick does not move in this series linkage arrangement. During hands-on
SAS operation, pilot inputs are sensed by the position potentiometers and sent
to the flight control computers that output a tailored command to their
respective linear actuators to yield an improved aircraft response.
The drawing above shows a full four-axis AFCS system installed in a Sikorsky
S-76. Note that the satisfactory performance of the AFCS is related directly to
the maintenance practices applied to the interface between the AFCS servos
(rotary or linear) and the aircraft’s basic control system. Poorly maintained
linkage and/or control rigging results in perceived AFCS problems that are not
the fault of the AFCS.

Helicopter AFCS Modes and Features

Today’s typical AFCS autopilot consists of three modes of operation: attitude

hold, coupled and SAS.

Attitude Hold (ATT) mode is used to maintain the helicopter’s pitch and roll
attitude in a fixed position against transient short-term disturbances. This is
flown with hands off the cyclic control.

Coupled (CPL) is flown with the autopilot in the ATT mode and a lateral and/or
vertical flight director mode(s) engaged.

Depending on the system, SAS is a selectable mode of the autopilot (just like
ATT). SAS is typically used with no flight director modes engaged. Pilots tend
to use SAS when a lot of maneuvering is called for or during turbulence since
the SAS mode smoothes out the response of pilot inputs or external
disturbances.

The flight director portion of the AFCS provides lateral and vertical computed
steering commands for navigation. The commands are sent to the autopilot
automatically when it is engaged, and the autopilot then follows the steering
commands. This is the proper definition of the term coupled.

Lateral modes are typically short-range and long-range navigation inputs.

Vertical commands are primarily air data commands, with glideslope mode
being a radio mode. Some of the newer model helicopters and their AFCS
have a flight management system (FMS), which can provide lateral and vertical
steering commands for the pilot, among other features.

There’s a lot more to learn, but there it is, a brief primer on helicopter AFCS. If
you would like to get more information or to go deeper into these systems,
send us your requests/questions and we will get back to you.
 Paul J. Magno has more than 30 years experience in helicopter avionics
certifications including AFCS and EFIS. He holds a
Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering and
is also an FAA DER, instrument-rated pilot and A&P
mechanic. He is the founder and president of Worldwide
Helicopter Solutions LLC, based in Glendale, AZ. For more
information, visit www.worldwidehelicoptersolutions.com.

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