Distributed Control System for Turbine Engines

A Distributed Control System (DCS) for a turbine engine has been demonstrated and tested, consisting of prototype Electronic Interface Units (EIUs) connected to data and power busses. In the DCS, a central control computer communicated with smart sensors and smart actuators via a 2.5 megabit/sec digital data bus, using the Fieldbus protocol. Power was distributed to the smart devices as 100-kHz 100V peak AC, allowing light, simple power converters at each smart device. All smart sensors, smart actuators and cables were dual-redundant. The smart actuators received position demand from the central control computer, exchanged data between channels to provide local redundancy management, closed the position loop locally, and reported actuator position to the central controller. Smart sensors converted sensed signals to digital values in engineering units, and performed local built-in tests. Testing of the DCS was done in a closed-loop simulation with an engine model. Frequency response of the DCS was almost identical with the conventional system.