An Advanced Helicopter Engine Control System

This paper describes the design and development of a full authority Digital Engine Control and intelligent cockpit Command Box by Dowty and Smiths Industries Controls Limited (DSIC) under a Ministry of Defence and Private Venture demonstrator program. The aims of this program are to: (1) demonstrate the recent and continuing improvements in IC technology and allied computing power; (2) employ control laws more relevant to electronic control, thus absolving the hydromechanical unit from precise fuel metering; (3) improve, by a quantum leap, the methods of monitoring engine/system performance. This control system has undergone successful engine running on a Rolls-Royce GEM, and will shortly be tested, in prototype form, in a Lynx.