Flap/Slat System

The Flap/Slat Controller benchmark is derived from a case study for Airbus [1]. During take-off (and landing) flaps and slats of the aircraft are extended to generate more lift at low velocity and have to be retracted in time as they are not robust enough for high velocities. Our system model is scalable in the number of flaps/slats, which allows us to study scalability of our methods on systems of concurrent components. 1 Application Domain Flaps and slats are aerodynamic surfaces on respectively the trailing and leading edge of an aircraft’s wings. During take-off and landing, these flaps and slats are extended to generate more lift at low velocity and have to be retracted in time as they are not robust enough for high velocities. They are under the primary control of the pilot via a Slat/Flap Lever, where lever positions correspond to flap/slat positions. A Flap/Slat Controller constantly monitors aircraft speed, whether the load of a flap/slat for the pilot commanded lever position is too high. The controller retracts flaps/slats from the extended position to the next lower lever setting, in case the aircraft speed exceeds a certain threshold speed for the selected configuration for more than a specified limit. If the aircraft speed falls below the threshold speed, the flap/slat position selected by the pilot will be automatically be commanded again.