High force linear actuator for an aeronautical application. Association with a fault tolerant converter.

Electric actuators are replacing hydraulic actuators in the new aircrafts. A direct drive multi-airgap linear actuator has been designed and developed in order to replace a hydraulic actuator for a landing gear system application. The advantage of using a direct drive solution is to remove the mechanical transmission and consequently to increase the reliability. The experimental results show the high performances of this technology which reaches about 1000 N/kg and 5000 N/dm³. This article reports a special fault tolerant converter connected to the machine. This converter is also adapted to the constraints of reliability of the application.